/usr/local/etc/webmin/cron/tempdelete.pl: not found — Cron Emails After Removing Webmin

Problem: I removed Webmin, which had been installed for ages and never used — properly, with pkg_delete. After that, cron started sending me emails:

/usr/local/etc/webmin/cron/tempdelete.pl: not found

A few of them arrived, and it looked like they would keep coming every day. So I had to find out where the script was being run from.

In short: when Webmin was removed, it didn’t take its job out of root’s crontab. Run crontab -e as root and delete the line with tempdelete.pl — the emails will stop.

Where the job was hiding

It wasn’t in /etc/crontab or in a couple of other places. Webmin’s temp-file cleanup job lives in root’s personal crontab. To view it:

crontab -l

You’ll see a line like this:

29 22 * * * /usr/local/etc/webmin/cron/tempdelete.pl

The numbers at the start are the run time (minutes and hours); yours may differ.

How to remove the job

First, it’s a good idea to save a copy of the crontab:

crontab -l > /root/crontab.bak

Then open it for editing:

crontab -e

The vi editor opens:

• put the cursor on the line with tempdelete.pl and press dd — the line is deleted;
• to save and exit — Esc, then :wq;
• to exit without saving — Esc, then :q!.

You can do the same with a single command, without an editor. It keeps every line in the crontab except the one with tempdelete.pl:

crontab -l | grep -v tempdelete.pl | crontab -

To check, this command should find nothing:

crontab -l | grep webmin

If other Webmin jobs are still listed, you can delete them too: Webmin is no longer on the server.

If Webmin was on Linux

On Linux, Webmin keeps its settings in /etc/webmin, so the email looks like this:

/etc/webmin/cron/tempdelete.pl: not found

The fix is the same: delete the line from root’s crontab. This email can also appear without removing Webmin — for example, after a failed upgrade. If Webmin is installed and running, you can delete the job right in its interface: System → Scheduled Cron Jobs.