Hi I've got a load alarm on one of our database servers.

Cron runs a script that checks the load every five minutes. If the load goes over 3 it sends me an sms text message.

*/5 * * * * /var/lib/pgsql/loadchk.sh


The database does a backup dump at midnight for about 20 minutes and the load occasionally goes up to 3 and I get woken up by my phone.

I would like cron not to run the script at this time. I tried the following:

*/5 1-0 * * * /var/lib/pgsql/loadchk.sh

but crontab didn't like this.

The following was accepted by crontab however, I'm not sure if it will work but it's also an hour too much:

*/5 1-23 * * * /var/lib/pgsql/loadchk.sh

Does anyone have any ideas?

Cheers,

That looks good. Matches description in your title (once every 5 minutes but not between midnight to 1 am) and `man -s 5 crontab`.

What makes you think it's an hour too much?

Hi,

Thanks,
Isn't it an hour too much? Is the 23 inclusive of an hour? I thought it would go to 23:05 and then stop.

nope. should go from 1:00, 1:05, 1:10, etc., through 22:55, 23:00, 23:05, 23:10, right through 23:55, and then stop until 1:00.

from 24:00 it won't run until 1:00, which is what your title asked for.

Cool, thanks for that.

Do you think you could post the loadchk.sh file? I am interested in using that myself. Thanks.