How-to for crontab

[chenel]

even when the crontab had:

* * * * * echo "Print this every minute"

You'd need to redirect the output from 'echo' to a file if you want to see anything -- echo doesn't run in a particular terminal so you'd never see it otherwise. Try something like

 * * * * * /bin/date >> /home/[your user]/test.out

That should append the current date and time to test.out in your home directory every minute. Let us know if that produces any results

[asadqamber]

Now its working. cheers!

Thanks for the help.

[chenel]

Now its working. cheers!

Thanks for the help.

Glad you got things to work.

[ducksun43]

this one is pretty good too http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/time.html#cron

[Martin H.]

Hi all !


Im currently having problems with the cron - execution of a script i wrote that needs root - privileges. The root - account on my machine is deactivated so i won't be able to switch to root - user.

I have done the following :

original script : test.sh
wrapper script : test2.sh ( just calls test.sh via "sudo completePathToScript/test.sh" )

And i edited the crontab with "sudo crontab -e" to add the following line :

/5 * * * * completePathToScript/test2.sh

The script test.sh seems to run, but cannot fullfill the parts where 'root' is requirred...
Is there a better way to achieve the goal (execute script with root rights via cron) ?

I have read through this thread, but nothing seems to apply to my problem.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thx in advance,
M.

[unutbu]

When you run "sudo crontab -e" you are editing root's personal crontab.
So all cron jobs run that way will already have root privileges.

So there is no need for root to run test2.sh. Rather, it should be able to run test.sh.

How about try

sudo crontab -e

*/5 * * * * completePathToScript/test.sh

Note that the crontab entry needs "*/5" at the beginning not "/5" if you want the job to run every 5 minutes.

[Martin H.]

Thx alot,


the missing * was a typo - but your advice works perfectly !
No need to "sudo - around" here !

Thanks for your help,
M.

[spynappels]

Finally, I've got the CRON thing working. I'm using it to run a script from a Online Backup Manager to do an incremental backup of a server every evening and finally I'm not getting Backup Failed emails from the backup providers anymore. Their own scheduler did not work, but running a manual backup through CRON has solved the problem.

Thanks for all the help.

[scripterworld]

nice post
some more information about crontab
http://scripterworld.blogspot.com/20...tion-with.html

[MarkX]

Has it crossed anyone's mind that putting cron into a GUI would save everyone a lot of work and any idiot might be able to use it in seconds?