crontab

tommytomato · 06-22-2007, 11:34 PM

Hi all

I'm trying to access crontab, but i get the following message

Code:

crontab -l 
no crontab for root

any one know whats that about

care to explain please

I was going to add some crontabs to back up my site and run the system updates.

Code:

5 3 * * * /usr/bin/apt-get update

is it ok to edit the file it self ? vim /etc/crontab, or should i use the crontab -e command

here is what my cron says now before editing

Code:

# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file.
# This file also has a username field, that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user  command
17 *    * * *   root    run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6    * * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
47 6    * * 7   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
52 6    1 * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly
#

TT

avallach · 06-23-2007, 01:04 AM

You should use

Code:

crontab -e

. When you run this command it will open an editor, which is set by EDITOR environment variable, and you can edit crontab files in a "clean" way.

tommytomato · 06-23-2007, 01:07 AM

When running the crontab -e command will that make the changes to /etc/crontab

as root

or do you have to run a admin user and then run crontab

TT

avallach · 06-23-2007, 05:21 AM

In crontab every user has it's own jobs when you run crontab -e it will edit root's planned jobs, when you run crontab -e as someone it will edit someone's planned jobs..

archtoad6 · 07-03-2007, 03:15 PM

In addition, there is system crontab /etc/crontab, which is independent of the user crontabs. See the crontab 5 man page.