how to set cron

[trashthing]

i'm wondering how to set cron to run a program every. ummm, like 10 minites. the program is a perl app i wrote. anyone know? :D

[trashthing]

oops. i ment to say every 10 minites.

[chrism01]

Try this
9 * * * * /home/your_script_name

fields are:
minute of hr 0-59
hour of day 0-23
day of mth 1-31
mth of year 1-12
weekday 0-6 (0=Sunday)

using crontab -e cmd to setup that entry.
Make sure you've got logging set in the script.

[mdwatts]

Did you mean minutes? :)

The Scheduling in Linux (http://justlinux.com/nhf/Miscellaneous/Scheduling_in_Linux.html) JL Help File.

[trashthing]

ehh, i put this in my user's crontab:

9 * * * * /home/user/path/file

but it doesn't work.

[trashthing]

i think it's the permissions.

[chrism01]

Could be; you'll need read+execute perms on the file for the user, and the user will need to be able to see perl itself.
Also, for every 10 mins, should be 0-59/10 (or */10) i think. My orig was on the 10th min of each hr. Sorry.

[trashthing]

thanks, i got it to work. there is only one problem; when i run the app manually the program opens mozilla (that's what i want it to do), but when it runs in cron it doesn't open mozilla. is this a problem w/ cron or my program?

[chrism01]

How do you know? Are you getting an error and if so what? Cron effectively runs in the background, so you're not going to see any output (or mozilla ;) ). What are you trying to do with this prog?

[trashthing]

the program tells me when my IP changes. the way it tells me is it opens up a mozilla and says check my IP. i open mozilla w/ a system call.

[chrism01]

As i said, cron runs (detached) in the background, so cannot communicate (directly) with a terminal.
You may have to settle for an email or call the wall cmd to braodcast a msg to all terminals.