----- Original Message ----- From: "Carlos E. R." To: "SuSE Linux E" Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 21:34 Subject: Re: [SLE] Cron Jobs

The Wednesday 2004-03-17 at 20:26 -0700, Donald Henson wrote:

...

All I want to do is run a simple backup job every morning (early). I'm pretty sure that I can set up the crontab entry to do that. What I don't know is where to put it. I've looked at /etc/cron, /etc/cron.daily (contains a number of scripts), etc. Is there an existing script that I modify or do I create one from scratch? I'd really appreciate any assistance here.

Not there. Simply issue "crontab -e" as the user you want to run your job as. Those diretories you mentioned work diferently, you can not choose the exact hour they are run: only once a day, a week, etc.

If you are not happy with vi as an editor, use instead "EDITOR=mcedit crontab -e" (or any other editor you like, but not an X one).

Another option is to use the 'read from file' option of crontab. Use whatever editor you prefer to create a file (I use cronset) which contains the necessary instructions for crontab. Then, you execute crontab passing it the filename as the only parameter. $ crontab cronset JimW

On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 20:34, Carlos E. R. wrote:

The Wednesday 2004-03-17 at 20:26 -0700, Donald Henson wrote:

...

All I want to do is run a simple backup job every morning (early). I'm pretty sure that I can set up the crontab entry to do that. What I don't know is where to put it. I've looked at /etc/cron, /etc/cron.daily (contains a number of scripts), etc. Is there an existing script that I modify or do I create one from scratch? I'd really appreciate any assistance here.

Not there. Simply issue "crontab -e" as the user you want to run your job as. Those diretories you mentioned work diferently, you can not choose the exact hour they are run: only once a day, a week, etc.

If you are not happy with vi as an editor, use instead "EDITOR=mcedit crontab -e" (or any other editor you like, but not an X one).

So if I want the cron job to be run by root, I just log in as root and issue the command 'crontab -e'? Don Henson

On Thu, 2004-03-18 at 10:05, Marshall Heartley wrote:

<snip>

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So if I want the cron job to be run by root, I just log in as root and issue the command 'crontab -e'?

You can either su to root and then do crontab -e or you can do sux and use a graphical interface.

Marshall

Thanks. I'll try it. Don Henson

On Thu, 2004-03-18 at 10:38, pinto wrote:

On Thursday 18 March 2004 17:00, Donald Henson wrote:

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So if I want the cron job to be run by root, I just log in as root and issue the command 'crontab -e'?

~ that is it.

the file is :-

/var/spool/cron/tabs/root

Thanks. The light's getting brighter. Don Henson

Quote from SuSE 9.0 Admin Manual: "/etc/crontab cannot be processed with crontab -e. It must be loaded directly into an editor, modified, then saved." But does that mean that's where I should put my cron job? It doesn't say. By the way, I've also looked at "man crontab" and, as usual, I was unable to extract any useful info. Whoever writes the man pages must speak a language I don't understand. As far as I can tell, the man pages are intended for experienced administrators who just need a reminder of something they already know about. It does not appear to be targeted at newbies. Don Henson On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 20:35, Hans Forbrich wrote:

You really want to look at "man crontab" <g>

If your userid has permission to run a cron job, the crontab command puts you into a 'crontab edit' mode. On exit, it automatically installs the resulting file into the right spot.

You might also want to invest in O'Reilly "Essential System Administration" (see http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/esa3/) That covers most unixes and Linuxes and has a great section on cron.

HTH /Hans

On Wednesday 17 March 2004 20:26, Donald Henson wrote:

...

Before you blow me off, let me say that I've been using Linux for about six months and this is the first time I've had occasion to set up a cron job. And before you tell me to RTFM, I've already done that as well as several exchanges on mailing lists and a couple of online tutorials. I'm here to tell you that I'm confused. You may need to know that I'm running SuSE Linux 9.0, since SuSE appears to handle cron jobs differently than everyone else.

All I want to do is run a simple backup job every morning (early). I'm pretty sure that I can set up the crontab entry to do that. What I don't know is where to put it. I've looked at /etc/cron, /etc/cron.daily (contains a number of scripts), etc. Is there an existing script that I modify or do I create one from scratch? I'd really appreciate any assistance here.

Don Henson

On Thu, 2004-03-18 at 02:56, Roland Hill wrote:

Know how you feel!

Others have mentioned crontab -e. I didn't know about this until they responded to your post.

Yes. It appears that once you understand it, entering a cron job is trivial but there's also a pretty large learning curve. Those who already know how to do it forget that newbies seem to have a lot of trouble understanding cron jobs. Anyway, thanks for your response. I'll put it in the queue with all the other responses and see if I can get the light to come on. Don Henson

On Sat, 2004-03-20 at 22:34, Roland Hill wrote:

Hi Donald,

* Donald Henson [19-03-04 09:21]:

...

...

Others have mentioned crontab -e. I didn't know about this until they responded to your post.

...

Yes. It appears that once you understand it, entering a cron job is trivial but there's also a pretty large learning curve. Those who already know how to do it forget that newbies seem to have a lot of trouble understanding cron jobs. Anyway, thanks for your response. I'll put it in the queue with all the other responses and see if I can get the light to come on.

Just had a thought, way after all the posts were posted, but are you okay with the format of a crontab i.e what each of the 5 "fields' are prior to the 'action'? Not trying to teach you to "suck eggs', but I can summarise it if needed.

Hope you have it sorted anyway.

That was the easy part. Thanks for the offer to help, though. Don Henson