crontab not working

[m3mary]

hello
yesterday i tried crontab it was working but now not working
i want to use it in automatic copying + do backups

[Terra]

Couple things:

1) There is no cronjob in the server for your username, which leads to #2

2) Whatever crontab file you are trying to inject has a syntax error:
Change: Mailto:<your_email_address>
to: MAILTO=<your_email_address>

Replace "<your_email_address>" with your email address and without the gator signs...

[m3mary]

for example im trying to test this
crontab -l
MAILTO=myemail@hotmail.com
24 * * * * zip -r zip.zip /big/dom/xuser/user/file.txt


this line (zip -r zip.zip /big/dom/xuser/user/file.txt) working fine without crontab.
but with crontab nothings happens

[m3mary]

and also which time should i use :
Local Time
GMT/UTC Time

[Kevin]

1) You should use the server's local time. Use the date command to see what it is.

2) Put a path on the zip.zip so that zip will know where to put it.

[m3mary]

MAILTO=user@hotmail.com
24 * * * * zip -r /big/dom/xuser/user/zip.zip /big/dom/xuser/user/file.txt

not working also

[Kevin]

Are you getting an error message in your email?

Also, *:24 hasn't happened since I posted.

[m3mary]

nothing in email so i changed the email also but nothing
no errors no OK

Yesterday i got messages and it worked

[Kevin]

OK, I think I have this figured out...

I am pretty sure that it would have just worked if you hadn't changed the job 2 minutes early. Here is the server log:
2008-10-06 02:22:00.124690500 bcron-sched: Reloading 'm3mary'
2008-10-06 02:24:00.126648500 bcron-sched: Warning: Ignoring unparseable line: '* 24 * * * zip -r /big/dom/xm3mary/m3mary/zip.zip /big/dom/xm3mary/m3mary/file.txt'

Note that at 02:22 you changed it from "24 *" to "* 24". "24 *" meant run it at 24 minutes past each hour. A time that didn't happen during the time it was set that way. "* 24" on the other hand would mean 24:00 which is not a valid time (midnight is 0:00).

[Kevin]

And I see you have now changed it to "12 *" which means run at 12 minutes past each hour.

Also, you may as well use /usr/bin/zip instead of zip just to make sure every possible issue is covered.

[m3mary]

Ok going to try it

[m3mary]

crontab -l
MAILTO=user@hotmail.com
* 37 * * * /usr/bin/zip -r /big/dom/xuser/user/zip.zip /big/dom/xuser/user/file.txt


not working
the time passed and nothing
also in min 24 the time passed so i returen it to 24 *

[m3mary]

i dont have crontab -u
maybe this is the reason

[Kevin]

You are still doing it backwards.

The format is:
minutes hours date month day command parameters

* 37 * * * would mean to run the job at 37:00 and there is no such time.
Crontab will accept this but not tell you that it will never work.

37 * * * * would mean to run the job every hour at *:37 (0:37 1:37 2:37 etc).

[Kevin]

Crontab -u is only for root. It allows the administrator to look at or manipulate the cron jobs of other users. You can only look at or manipulate your crontab so the -u parameter is useless.

[m3mary]

crontab -l
MAILTO=user@hotmail.com
06 * * * * zip -r /big/dom/xuser/user/zip.zip /big/dom/xuser/user/file.txt

Worked OK but didnt inform me by email !

also i changed to :

crontab -l
MAILTO=user@hotmail.com
09 * * * * cp /big/dom/xuser/user/file.txt /big/dom/xuser/www/fullcon/

didnt worked .. trying to copy file from place to another

[m3mary]

NOT WORKING AGAIN
i dont know how it worked prev.
this is the server time :
date
Mon Oct 6 03:33:33 EDT 2008

[Terra]

1) There is nothing mailed to you if there is no output from the command, this is by design

2) use full paths for your binaries: /bin/cp and /usr/bin/zip

Also, please take some time and study:
http://service.futurequest.net/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=questiondetails&_i=30

That should hopefully help...

[m3mary]

there are no man crontab !!
i somehow entered an editing place, when trying to crontab -e
i didnt now how to go back so maybe i changed somthing in the script for crontab
check that also please

[Arthur]

there are no man crontab !! The man page for crontab doesn't provide much useful information for beginners, the knowledge base article (http://service.futurequest.net/kb30) provides all the information you need.

i somehow entered an editing place, when trying to crontab -e
i didnt now how to go back so maybe i changed somthing in the script for crontab
The default editor is vi (vim to be more precise) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor)). Although it is a hugely powerful editor, it's not really for beginners, use the method described in the knowledge base (http://service.futurequest.net/kb30), or use another, simpler, editor like Joe or Pico (e.g. EDITOR=pico crontab -e).

-Arthur

[m3mary]

should i do 2 files or one is enough for the last order
i mean should i do txt file for linking to cgi file in cgi-bin

MAILTO=user@domain.com
0 0 * * 1 /big/dom/xdomain/cgi-bin/scriptname.cgi


or it is enough for txt file to do it by included order in it

[m3mary]

i think it is working now
first mistake don't check junk mail, so I'm going to mailto my FQquestmail
second mistake that i should leave it till one hour passing the time I'm using
for example using : minute 13 , should wait 1 hour on exact 13, that means next 5 minutes do not works.

[m3mary]

it was a puzzle im working with 5 minutes and it is working after one hour and above
thanks all