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Old 10-12-2004, 10:29 AM   #1
glenn69
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Registered: Jul 2003
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Question Whats the difference between all the crontabs (system, root, users) ?


I have read about cron. I see that there is a system crontab in /etc/crontab. Then there are user crontabs for each user and root.

I have accessed each of these for editing, but I am a bit confused as to which one I should be using.

I want to automate our office server's backups for once every weekday evening. Is it ok to put that in system crontab, or should I be using a user crontab?

Also, in the system crontab, i see that there are these:

/etc/crontab file lists the times to run various cron directories with any files.
/etc/cron.hourly directory listing of hourly files to be run
/etc/cron.daily directory listing of daily files to be run
/etc/cron.weekly directory listing of weekly files to be run
/etc/cron.monthly directory listing of monthly files to be run
/etc/cron.allow file list of users allowed to use crontab (not always present)
/etc/cron.deny file list of users denied to use crontab (not always present)

Why would I use a daily crontab vs. simply setting up the cron entry to run every day 10 11 * * * blah blah?

Thanks
 
Old 10-12-2004, 06:45 PM   #2
evilmrhenry
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Quote:
Why would I use a daily crontab vs. simply setting up the cron entry to run every day 10 11 * * * blah blah?
Basically, dropping a script into a directory is usually easier than editing a text file. Either way will work, though editing the crontab gives better control.

Quote:
I have accessed each of these for editing, but I am a bit confused as to which one I should be using.

I want to automate our office server's backups for once every weekday evening. Is it ok to put that in system crontab, or should I be using a user crontab?
The major difference here is permissions. User cron jobs will run with the permissions of that user, system cron jobs (I think) run with the permissions of root.
 
Old 10-12-2004, 07:41 PM   #3
qUox
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thx that helped me
 
  


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