Setting up crontab SUSE Linux 8.2
 

Here is my delima: I am a newbie to Linux and I have racked my brain trying to setup a simple cron job to perform a backup on my machine. My administrative doc states that /etc/c rontab cannot be processed with crontab -e. When I attempt to do this my editor opens, I include the following line:

5 1 * * * /usr/bin/scripts/run-backup

I am then asked to save the crontab with a name of crontab.xxxxx and they are stored in the /tmp directory. Why is the temp file being generated?

I then tried to modify the root user in /var/spool/cron/tabs to include this line:

5 1 * * * root /usr/bin/scripts/run-backup

This failed to work as well

I then tried to create a crontab file from the root profile and store it in /etc/cron.daily

Another failure

Can anyone offer me any step by step assistance? I have review admin doc for SUSE and other sites via Google and cannot find anything definitive to my OS.

For cron jobs I usually just do the following:

edit a file with filename of your choice (ex: vim cronjobs)

Enter in your cron info, for example to backup my /home/<username> directory I do

30 13 * * * tar -cvf /backup/daybackup.tar /home/<username>/*

Then as root I would do # crontab cronjobs

This may not be what you are looking for, let me know if it isn't

I know you are not supposed to change '/etc/crontab' this way, but I 'su' as root then edit the crontab file.

You will also need to make sure the script '/usr/bin/scripts/run-backup' works as required manually. Then it should work. Most put all cron jobs in '/etc/cron./*', then leave the crontab file alone. So that the cron job will use crontab to run anything in '/etc/cron.*/'

JN

Thanks for the feedback. I will attempt follow your recommendations and give you an update soon.

if you are new, I would also suggest trying webmin (www.webmin.com). you may already have it installed on your system as it is included in many distros. to launch webmin, enter https://localhost:10000 in your favorite browser. Its cron scheduling agent is really easy to use.

T

Attempted to install webmin package via YAST2. Package was installed succesfully.

When I attempted to start the service here is message I recieved:

Start:

/etc/init.d/webmin start returned 127 (Unspecified error.)

Stop:

/etc/init.d/webmin stop returned 127 (Unspecified error.)
/etc/init.d/webmin: line 30: /etc/webmin/stop: No such file or directory

Refresh:

/etc/init.d/webmin status returned 1 (Program is dead and /var/run pid file exists.)
grep: /etc/webmin/miniserv.conf: No such file or directory
Webmin is stopped

/etc/init.d/webmin: line 30: /etc/webmin/stop: No such file or directory

I am not sure where to proceed as a result.

I attempted to do this for a new file. When I executed the crontab at command line it updated my the user "root" file at var/spool/cron/tabs/root, but never executed the shell script.

Next I will try to put my backup script in the etc/cron.daily/ and see if it get's run automatically.