On Wed, 12 Jan 2000, Jeffrey L . Taylor wrote:

I just run "crontab -e" (e for edit) as the user I want the job to run as and let it worry about where the file goes. It uses whatever is in the environment (shell) variable EDITOR.

SYNTAX seems to be at the heart of the problem. I want to back-up my /etc Directory in a File named "etc" to which I wish to add the date of each day, so that the file-name will be like "etc000113.tar.gz" my ROOTCRON line looks like this :- 5 0 * * * tar czvf /etc`date +%y%m%d`.tar.gz /etc { SYNTAX is WRONG.} After standing on my head, and doing a double sommersault, I can not understand the 'man'or 'info' pages for "date" ! Could someone kindly tell me where I am going wrong with the ````````` marks ? thanks ____________ sent on Linux ____________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Message envoye depuis iFrance : http://www.ifrance.com ou 3615 IFRANCE Gratuit : Hebergement (50 Mo)/Vos emails (POP,HTML,20 Mo, FAX)/Votre agenda -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Sean Rima wrote: ___________________________________________ 5 0 * * * tar czvf /etc`date +%y%m%d`.tar.gz /etc { SYNTAX is WRONG.} ___________________________________________

I ran it here and it works fine, try running it from the command line and see what is said. Also does your ROOTCRON point to a shell.

Strike me pink ! ~ Yes, I just tried as you suggest, and it DOES run OK at the command line ! So, How must I Point rootcron to a shell, so that the CRON job is executed OK ? Thanks, Sean :) best ____________ sent on Linux ____________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Message envoye depuis iFrance : http://www.ifrance.com ou 3615 IFRANCE Gratuit : Hebergement (50 Mo)/Vos emails (POP,HTML,20 Mo, FAX)/Votre agenda -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Sean Rima wrote:

I had the same problem, nearly killed me :) Add to the top of your crontab -e: SHELL=/bin/sh

Thanks Sean . . . I'm not quite there yet . . . SO, it DOES run from the Command Line, AND, I have now added SHELL=/bin/sh at the head of ROOTCRON But . . . --- my rootcron file, in /var/cron/tabs/ now is as follows :- ________________________ # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall. # (root installed on Thu Jan 13 15:37:06 2000) # (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $) SHELL=/bin/sh 39 15 * * * tar czvf /bup/etc`date +%y%m%d`.tar.gz /etc /root /boot 41 15 * * * tar czvf /bup/home`date +%y%m%d`.tar.gz /home 43 15 * * * tar czvf /bup/var`date +%y%m%d`.tar.gz /var/named /var/cron/tabs /var/spool/mail /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/greek 45 15 * * * updatedb _____________________ The error message I get in /var/spool/mail/root is :- _________________________________________ Subject: Cron tar czvf /bup/var`date + X-Cron-Env: X-Cron-Env: X-Cron-Env: X-Cron-Env: /bin/sh: -c: line 1: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``' /bin/sh: -c: line 2: syntax error: unexpected end of file _____________________________________________ What might be fouling things up ? Thanks :) ____________ sent on Linux ____________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Message envoye depuis iFrance : http://www.ifrance.com ou 3615 IFRANCE Gratuit : Hebergement (50 Mo)/Vos emails (POP,HTML,20 Mo, FAX)/Votre agenda -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Ron Oliver wrote:

I do know what'll fix it. Just create a shell script for the command and run _that_ from cron.

That DID fix it ! Many thanks to you, and to Sean Rina for your help. best :) ____________ sent on Linux ____________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Message envoye depuis iFrance : http://www.ifrance.com ou 3615 IFRANCE Gratuit : Hebergement (50 Mo)/Vos emails (POP,HTML,20 Mo, FAX)/Votre agenda -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/

tabanna wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jan 2000, Jeffrey L . Taylor wrote:

...

I just run "crontab -e" (e for edit) as the user I want the job to run as and let it worry about where the file goes. It uses whatever is in the environment (shell) variable EDITOR.

SYNTAX seems to be at the heart of the problem.

I want to back-up my /etc Directory in a File named "etc" to which I wish to add the date of each day, so that the file-name will be like "etc000113.tar.gz"

my ROOTCRON line looks like this :-

5 0 * * * tar czvf /etc`date +%y%m%d`.tar.gz /etc { SYNTAX is WRONG.}

After standing on my head, and doing a double sommersault, I can not understand the 'man'or 'info' pages for "date" !

Could someone kindly tell me where I am going wrong with the ````````` marks ?

You have been bitten by one of cron's features. To quote the crontab(5) man page: The ``sixth'' field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run. The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or % character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the SHELL variable of the cronfile. Percent-signs (%) in the command, unless escaped with backslash (\), will be changed into newline characters, and all data after the first % will be sent to the command as standard input. /Michael -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/