Hi friends,
i am Swanand. I am just trying to know linux now. I am faced with a problem. I am trying to schedule a program using cron. But i am not able to schedule it.
I was logged in as user root. Then i made a file in the directory /etc/cron.d named myfile, and wrote the following things :
--------------------------------------------------------
SHELL=/bin/bash
#PATH=/root:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/

01 * * * * root echo "yahoo!"
--------------------------------------------------------

But i received a mail and when i checked it, it showed :

From root@localhost.localdomain Sat Jan 28 20:01:05 2006
Return-Path: <root@localhost.localdomain>
Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
by localhost.localdomain (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k0SEV37t004890
for <root@localhost.localdomain>; Sat, 28 Jan 2006 20:01:04 +0530
Received: (from root@localhost)
by localhost.localdomain (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id k0SEV2Lb004888;
Sat, 28 Jan 2006 20:01:03 +0530
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 20:01:03 +0530
Message-Id: <200601281431.k0SEV2Lb004888@localhost.localdomain>
From: root@localhost.localdomain (Cron Daemon)
To: root@localhost.localdomain
Subject: Cron <root@localhost> root rm /root/testcron.txt
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/bash>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/root:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <MAILTO=root>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=root>
X-Cron-Env: <USER=root>

/bin/bash: root: command not found
-----------------------------------------------------
Can anyone please tell me how to schedule the jobs using cron ????
Thank you.

Not sure what you are doing but it if that is the entire file it should have something like this at the beginning.
#!/bin/bash
#!/bin/csh
All depends on what shell enviroment you need it to use. Also needs to executable. Run the command ' chmod +x name_of_file '.

Hope this helps
Brian1

It told you at the end:
It is saying you tried to execute a command named "root" but it couldn't be found.

The above appears to be valid syntax for a file in cron.d but NOT for a line in crontab. You didn't try to add it to your crontab as well did you? As root type "crontab -l" to verify you don't have that line in crontab itself - if you do then type "crontab -e" and delete the line. You should have EITHER a file in cron.d OR a line in crontab - not both.

Another issue though - 'echo "yahoo!"' has nowhere to output - remember this is being done in the background - not by your terminal or console. It "might" put it on the console but if it were me I'd specify an output rather than leaving it like that e.g.:

echo "yahoo!" >/dev/console