Cron Help Needed

Cron Help Needed

Posted by: Dalriadan
Posted on: 2006-06-03 11:46:00

Greetings all,
Since I'm a raw beginner at this particular subject, I figured this was the place to start :)

I'm attempting to set up a cron file in order to run a particular script at 4:59am each day. I've manually tested the script I want the cron file to execute and it's running fine. However, the cron file isn't executing it.

This is what I have in the cron file:

59 04 * * * /usr/local/bin/perl /home/"username"/"domain"/updatesaints/update.pl ;

Obviously I've done something wrong and would greatly appreciate some help (preferably in words of one syllable)

With blessings,
Dal

Re: Cron Help Needed

Posted by: norm1037
Posted on: 2006-06-03 12:41:00

You may like to peruse the DreamWiki page http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Cron which should make things clear.

There appears to be a speck of fly dust at the end of your line which you might want to brush away.

Are you using SSH and crontab -e to insert the line or some other technique?



--
Norm

Opinions are my own views and are not the views of DreamHost.
Any advice offered by me should be acted upon only at your own risk.

Re: Cron Help Needed

Posted by: Dalriadan
Posted on: 2006-06-03 12:47:00

"Fly dirt" now brushed away. And yes, I was using Putty and crontab -e

Re: Cron Help Needed

Posted by: norm1037
Posted on: 2006-06-03 12:58:00

Is your .pl file executable at 755?
Oh and does it run from the command line? (Your perl program line that is)

--
Norm

Opinions are my own views and are not the views of DreamHost.
Any advice offered by me should be acted upon only at your own risk.

Re: Cron Help Needed

Posted by: Dalriadan
Posted on: 2006-06-03 13:13:00

I *think* I may have found the problem. One of the files was pointing to the wrong directory... which wouldn't help at all *sigh*

er... just how do you run it from the command line? (total newbie here when it comes to this)

Re: Cron Help Needed

Posted by: norm1037
Posted on: 2006-06-03 13:17:00

You just do it like cron does it.

/usr/local/bin/perl /home/"username"/"domain"/updatesaints/update.pl

From the command line when you have SSH'd in.

It may offer you some useful errors.



With your crontab -e editing you can place

MAILTO="username@example.com"

at the top and that email address will get all the error messages instead of root.



--
Norm

Opinions are my own views and are not the views of DreamHost.
Any advice offered by me should be acted upon only at your own risk.

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