i know this is rudimentary but if someone could step by step me how to do this it would be great.

right now i have a ut2k4 server running and inorder to update the stats page, i have to first copy all the .log files to another folder, then run php on a file there to make it update the database. basically, here are the two commands that need to run:

cp /usr/games/ut2k4/UserLogs/*.log /home/user/utstats/Logs
php /home/user/utstats/logs.php pass=password

now what i need is some way to make my system run these two commands every hour, lets say on the hour for ease of things. just run one, then when its finished, run the other.

things to take into account, i'd like it to automatically overwrite the .log files when it copies them just incase something had screwed up before and theres some left.

basically i dont know how to get all these to run on a schedule automatically. i'm sure it involves cron somehow but every time i go editing that other things seem to break so i've been wary of going into it again without a little assistance.



oh man that is the best emote ever

start here:
$ man cron
$ man crontab
then google for something like 'cron crontab tutorial introduction'

Setting up the two commands to run could be done as simply as creating a lil shell script.
As for the hourly part, there may be a folder in your distro within which the scripts are run every hour. (/etc/cron.hourly for example) Copying or linking that script in would pretty much take care of that problem.

Hope this helps...lemme know..

oh ok i do have a /etc/cron.hourly its just an empty file.

so just vi that and stick those two lines in and thats it?

cool, works thanks!

I think cron.hourly may be a directory.

You're on the right track with regards to vi-ing a file.

Putting the lines into the file, and make the file executable. Copying, moving or linking it into the cron.hourly directory will make it run.

I am sure you probably came across the following site. If otherwise, Cron

Cheers