Hello,

I'm battling with this strange problem for a while now:
i run a local server under ubuntu 11.04, it's used as a web server for various items registered in a database. And i want to save this database each hour of the working day.
So i made a script containing a mysqldump, and i use cron to run this script with the following line:

00 8-18 * * * root /etc/init.d/sql-backup-hourly.sh >> /tmp/script-sql-backup-hourly.txt

now the weird thing: the server starts the script at 10 instead of 8 (and after 10 it works perfectly)
I've tried numerous ways to do the job: the original one was in crontab -e using VI, then using gedit to edit the/etc/crontab file. Both did the same thing.
I tried a different way to specify the minutes:

01 8-18 * * * or 0 8-18 * * *

none of them worked.
the server is at the right time and date and timezone, so are the only 2 users created on it (root and user).

I've tried this on another ubuntu 11.04 and the same problem arose.

Halp \o/

If you put "nice" to 1 it doesn't run on time?

no, still doesn't starts on time :/ (and now the server doesn't seems to execute the cron at all.

i think i'll try to turn around this problem and put this script in the /etc/cron.hourly/ and make it execute each hour

Yes I did my back up scripts inside the /etc/cron.weekly directory and I have no problem with it. Just as usual chmod +x you know that of course.

BTW, have you examined the hardware time (clock) if it matches with the kernel time? Try check "hwclock".

Goodluck.

the hwclock runs on CET time (i'm on gmt+1) it's exactly one hour earlier than system time. but if it was related to that, all the backups would have a one hour delay, it's not the case here, it's starts running at 10 instead of 8, but stops at the right time (18).

trying the run-parts now, with the script put into /etc/cron.hourly.
the script is launched nicelly at whatever hour i want, but for whatever reason i don't get, it's the mysqldump line in the script that can only be run starting at 10.

here the msqldump line:
mysqldump -uroot -ppassword --opt --all-databases > alldatadases_`date +"%k%M"`.sql

could be related to the %k%M part then

same problem as here then: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...lename-276505/