Can someone shed light on what the entries below
signify in /var/log/messages?  My /var/log/messages
are now starting to rotate with the *vast* majority of
the entries like the (cut|paste) sample below.

It appears cron is involved but I've not found any
crontab file to drive this.

1) Does this "element" need to run this frequently?
   (every 5 mins)

2) Does it need to run as root?  [this is my principle
nervousness - are we comfortable in knowing what this
is enough to trust it as root?]

I'm running SL 4.0 with the standard regular YUM
updates.

TIA,
r.m.

. . .
Jul 31 09:00:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11116]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:00:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11118]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:00:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11118]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:00:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11116]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:01:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11121]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:01:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11121]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:05:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11132]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:05:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11132]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:10:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11135]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:10:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11137]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:10:02 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11139]:
session opened for user randy by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:10:02 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11137]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:10:02 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11139]:
session closed for user randy
Jul 31 09:10:02 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11135]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:15:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11147]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:15:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11147]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:20:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11150]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:20:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11151]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:20:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11151]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:20:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11150]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:25:02 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11156]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:25:02 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11156]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:30:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11161]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:30:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11163]:
session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 31 09:30:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11161]:
session closed for user root
Jul 31 09:30:01 localhost crond(pam_unix)[11163]:
session closed for user root
. . .


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