just run 'crontab -e' or if this is for root, edit /etc/crontab. - Herman On 10 Jul 2002, Tom Nielsen wrote: ->Keith, -> ->I did what you said and it works fine. I just need to get it into cron ->so that it will be done every night. -> ->How would I accomplish this? Kcron keeps crashing so I need another way. ->Thanks, ->Tom -> ->On Wed, 2002-07-10 at 12:39, Keith Winston wrote: ->> Tom, ->> ->> If you follow my directions in the post, it will be automated. First, ->> create the bash script (those two lines that start with #!/bin/bash), ->> save it in your home directory, edit your crontab to schedule it. From ->> your sample, you want it to run at 17:45 every day. That's it. ->> ->> ->> Best Regards, ->> Keith ->> ->> On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 12:05:18PM -0700, Tom Nielsen wrote: ->> > Thanks for the information. What I'm trying to do is to have my system ->> > automatically backup my files, such as you stated. ->> > ->> > How can I have automate what you have written? ->> > ->> > Tom ->> > ->> > On Wed, 2002-07-10 at 11:21, Keith Winston wrote: ->> > > On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 10:57:42AM -0700, Tom Nielsen wrote: ->> > > > I'm trying to create an entry into crontab so that I can backup files ->> > > > every night. I created a file that has the following: ->> > > > ->> > > > /bin/sh ->> > > > 45 17 * * * /bin/tar /mnt/win/tom/backup /home/tom/act ->> > > > ->> > > > I saved the above as 'backup' ->> > > ->> > > You are doing some odd things here. Your backup shell script should not ->> > > have cron statements in it. Also, that doesn't look like a valid tar ->> > > command either. Try something like this in a text file: ->> > > ->> > > #!/bin/bash ->> > > tar czvf /home/tom/backupfile.tgz /mnt/win/tom/backup /home/tom/act ->> > > ->> > > Save it as /home/tom/backup and make it executable with: ->> > > ->> > > chmod u+x backup ->> > > ->> > > That script will create a backupfile.tgz (compressed) file in your home ->> > > directory with the contents of the two directories. ->> > > ->> > > > ->> > > > I then opened a console, su'd and typed: ->> > > > ->> > > > crontab -u root backup ->> > > > ->> > > > The response is "You (root) are not allowed to use this program ->> > > > (crontab) Contact your sysadmin to change /var/spool/cronallow or ->> > > > /var/spool/crondeny" ->> > > > ->> > > ->> > > You would only use the -u option if you wanted to edit the crontab of a ->> > > user _other_ than the currently logged in user. By the way, you don't ->> > > have to run this as a root cron (unless you don't have access to one of ->> > > the directories you are trying to backup as a user). Try: ->> > > ->> > > crontab -e ->> > > ->> > > This will bring up a vi session where you can edit the crontab. Then, ->> > > insert your cron command: ->> > > ->> > > 45 17 * * * /home/tom/backup ->> > > ->> > > Save and exit. That will install your new crontab. ->> > > ->> ->