I'm trying to find out some details regarding cron and /etc/cron.d/ on a RedHat system. Ironically, my answer is viewable within the vixie-cron-*.src.rpm for this package, but the the man pages for cron don't match the text which is provided by the vixie-cron RPM.If I search my MANPATH for the keyword cron, it shows me some results like vixie-cron          (rpm). What does this (rpm) tag mean, why are these manpages not installed on the system and can I view those manpages?$ man -k cron/etc/anacrontab [anacrontab] (5)  - configuration file for anacronanacron              (8)  - runs commands periodicallyanacron             (rpm) - A cron-like program that can run jobs lost during downtime.cron                 (8)  - daemon to execute scheduled commands (ISC Cron V4.1)crontab              (1)  - maintain crontab files for individual users (ISC Cron V4.1)crontab              (1p)  - schedule periodic background workcrontab              (5)  - tables for driving cron (ISC Cron V4.1)crontabs            (rpm) - Root crontab files used to schedule the execution of programs.vixie-cron          (rpm) - The Vixie cron daemon for executing specified programs at set times.Note that there is no page for vixie-cron, and the vixie-cron package doesn't actually provide any manpages named vixie-cron$ man vixie-cronNo manual entry for vixie-cron$ rpm -q --whatprovides /usr/bin/crontabvixie-cron-4.1-77.el5_4.1$ rpm -q --list vixie-cron/etc/cron.d/etc/pam.d/crond/etc/rc.d/init.d/crond/etc/sysconfig/crond/usr/bin/crontab/usr/sbin/crond/usr/share/man/man1/crontab.1.gz/usr/share/man/man5/crontab.5.gz/usr/share/man/man8/cron.8.gz/usr/share/man/man8/crond.8.gz/var/spool/cron
Why does `man -k cron` say `vixie-cron (rpm)` for some results, and how do I read those pages?
rhel;man;rpm
The command man -k queries against a pre-compiled database and not the manual pages themselves.I suspect that entries may have been made in the database (see man mandb for details) for pages that don't actually exist. I am not familiar enough with the RPM mechanisms to know how this could have happened.In a similar vein, there is considerable flexibility in what section a given manual page may claim to live. For example, on my system man Carp claims to be in section 3perl where the underlying file is stored in .../man3/Carp.3perl.gz. The commandsman Carpman -s 3 Carpman -s 3perl Carpall yield the same page while man -s 3junk Carp complains that there is no such entry.You might find mlocate (a.k.a. locate) to be useful for hunting files by name. I presume it is available for RedHat since redacted@redhat.com is credited as the author.