Hi all!
I have set up a red hat 9 server on my fathers job on which all the users store their files. My job now is to backup this folder (/home/documents)
with cron every night.

I have read several posts here about cron but I'm still not really sure how it works. For example which cronfile do I need to edit so that the system makes this backup no matter what user is logged in - or even if there is noone logged in(if the computer waits in the logon screen)?

My other problem is the script which should mount a usb-drive to store the backup files and then unmount it. I have really no idea how to do this and i would really appreciate if someone could help me a bit!

The recommended way of handling
cron-jobs is through the usage of
crontab
(man crontab for details)

As the job will have to have
permissions to read & backup
everyones files I'd suggest running
the backup as root.

As for the mounting ...

Put the mount, the tar, and the unmount
command into the same shell-script (in
root's home?) and point cron to it.



Cheers,
Tink

thank you!
but how do I open the crontab? I tried with "crontab -e" but it didn't work....

Copy and paste the output?
I'd like to see what problem you
have with it...


Cheers,
Tink

when I type crontab -e as root some strange window pops up and I cannot type or save anything. I can open /etc/crontab though. can i use that file for making the backup?
how do I type if I want to run the job as root?

My last question: how do I make a script?

thank you m8!

That "strange thing" is called vi, and is
Unix'/Linux' most common editor :}

By default it's in a mode that will
let you delete characters, words, lines,
to do modification press either a or i
(append or insert) ... for a full overview
try man vi :}

crontab -e always works for the currently
logged in user ...

Use your favourite editor, create a file
that starts with
#!/bin/bash
on the first line, and then type all the nifty
things you want it to do.

Then save it, then make it executable with
chmod u+x <your filename here>



Cheers,
Tink

ok thank you! But if I run crontab -e as root and add my commands, will those commands be executed even if noone is logged in? (if the computer is idle at the logon screen)


I think I will manage now! thanks!

That's the whole point of cron ;)

You don't need to be logged in.
If you want to make sure that you
can tell something happened, just
redirect the output of the job to a
logfile....

1 1 * * * /usr/local/f-prot/tools/check-updates.pl >> ~/fp.up 2>&1

A less ~/fp.up and a ls -ltr fp* will
show me that it worked :} and what
time it did so ;)

Cheers,
Tink

ok thank you!