Anywhere in that list will do, it's not required
to be sorted ... so, if you wanted your script to
run every evening at 8 o'clock you'd go


01 20 * * * * /<path>/<to>/norton.sh


Cheers,
Tink


P.S.: Your "file" looks nothing like mine :)
Where/how did you get that list?

Where did I get the file? I went to /etc/crontab. Second, isn't 8:00 in the evening 2000 hours? I'm confused as to how the times correlate to real time.

Also, will the file run in the background so I won't be interrupted with what I may be doing or will it interrupt me?

Hmmm ... must be a RH thing... if I want to
add something to crontab I do
crontab -e, the result is then stored in
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/<user-id>


As for the format
man crontab
So yes, it's 2000 (military speak) but
00 20 for cron ...

Look at this line:
# MIN HOUR DAY MONTH DAYOFWEEK COMMAND

Cheers,
Tink

Ah,, I see now, Tink. Thanks. However, you didn't answer my question about running in the background or will this interrupt whatever I may be working on at the time the job runs?

No mate, no interruptions ... that's what cron is
for. Jobs running un-attended.


Cheers,
Tink

Hi Tink,

So just to make sure I understand this, if I wanted a job to run at 5pm every day Mon-Fri, I would do this,

0 17 mon-fri * * [name of file]

Is my logic correct? Or do I need another * there? Secondly, what do all of the asterisks mean anyway?

*sigh*

0 17 * * mon-fri <name of file with full path>


Cheers,
Tink

Okay, Tink,

What's the sigh all about? The only thing I was different was that I didn't have the full path indicated, right?

Cheers,
Tink

Oh, now I see. DUH!! Thanks. So, now I'll just plug that line into crontab and it should run automatically, yes?

and here it is


# run-parts
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
0 17 * * mon-fri /software/norton.sh

Umm, something else I just noticed, should I specify root there as the other items have or does that not matter?

That's where the difference I noticed comes
in - I said that yours looks different from
mine ... do a
man crontab
to see what else RH did to cron ;)



Cheers,
Tink

This is what it gives me. It would appear that I need a flag in there somewhere, but that doesn't really make any sense as the other entries don't have flags.

Is there a test I can run on this file to check it for syntax?


CRONTAB(1) CRONTAB(1)

NAME
crontab - maintain crontab files for individual users (V3)

SYNOPSIS
crontab [ -u user ] file
crontab [ -u user ] { -l | -r | -e }

DESCRIPTION
Crontab is the program used to install, deinstall or list the tables
used to drive the cron(8) daemon in Vixie Cron. Each user can have
---> their own crontab, and though these are files in /var, they are not
intended to be edited directly.

If the allow file exists, then you must be listed therein in order to
be allowed to use this command. If the allow file does not exist but
the deny file does exist, then you must not be listed in the deny file
in order to use this command. If neither of these files exists, then
depending on site-dependent configuration parameters, only the super
user will be allowed to use this command, or all users will be able to
use this command.

I said I've never seen a file
/etc/crontab

I modify my crontabs using
crontab -e
The actual files that crontab writes on
my system(s) line in /var/spool/cron/crontabs

Maybe someone in the Linux -> Distributions -> RH forum
can shed light on what the use/usage of
/etc/crontab
is?



Cheers,
Tink