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Full Discussion: editing crontab help
Operating Systems Linux Fedora editing crontab help Post 302451831 by methyl on Wednesday 8th of September 2010 07:03:44 AM
Old 09-08-2010
Assuming you are trying to add a line to the existing root cron and that you are happy to run "mysqldump" as the user "root".

Code:
1) Review your proposed crontab entry after also reading the suggested instructions in post #2.
The environment under cron is quite different from the command line.
The proposed cron line will probably be best as a named script because you will invariably have to set
some environment variables before running "mysqldump"
(not least of which would be $PATH so you can find the program).

Though stating the obvious this cron will fire at 05:11 (early hours of the morning) 7 days a week.
11 05 * * * mysqldump -u ruth -ppassword -h localhost world > /home/ruth/backup/world_try

2) Set the environment variable "EDITOR" to your normal editor and export the variable.
# If your normal editor is "vi"
EDITOR="vi"
export EDITOR

3) Copy the root crontab in case or accident
crontab -l > /tmp/root_crontab_saved

4) Edit the crontab
crontab -e

In the editing session insert your new line into the crontab.
Whether you do this by typing it or by importing your existing file is up to you.
There will then be two distinct lines.
At the end of your editing session when you save the file the crontab will become active.


Reference: The instructions referred to in post #2 are quite good.

Last edited by methyl; 09-08-2010 at 08:05 AM.. Reason: layout
 

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CRONTAB(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						CRONTAB(1)

NAME
crontab -- maintain crontab files for individual users (V3) SYNOPSIS
crontab [-u user] file crontab [-u user] { -l | -r | -e } DESCRIPTION
The crontab utility 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 they are not intended to be edited directly. (Darwin note: Although cron(8) and crontab(5) are officially supported under Darwin, their functionality has been absorbed into launchd(8), which provides a more flexible way of automatically executing commands. See launchctl(1) for more information.) If the /usr/lib/cron/cron.allow file exists, then you must be listed therein in order to be allowed to use this command. If the /usr/lib/cron/cron.allow file does not exist but the /usr/lib/cron/cron.deny file does exist, then you must not be listed in the /usr/lib/cron/cron.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. The format of these files is one username per line, with no leading or trailing whitespace. Lines of other formats will be ignored, and so can be used for com- ments. The first form of this command is used to install a new crontab from some named file or standard input if the pseudo-filename '-' is given. The following options are available: -u Specify the name of the user whose crontab is to be tweaked. If this option is not given, crontab examines ``your'' crontab, i.e., the crontab of the person executing the command. Note that su(1) can confuse crontab and that if you are running inside of su(1) you should always use the -u option for safety's sake. -l Display the current crontab on standard output. -r Remove the current crontab. -e Edit the current crontab using the editor specified by the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables. The specified editor must edit the file in place; any editor that unlinks the file and recreates it cannot be used. After you exit from the editor, the modified crontab will be installed automatically. FILES
/usr/lib/cron/cron.allow /usr/lib/cron/cron.deny DIAGNOSTICS
A fairly informative usage message appears if you run it with a bad command line. SEE ALSO
crontab(5), compat(5), cron(8), launchctl(1) STANDARDS
The crontab command conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2''). The new command syntax differs from previous versions of Vixie Cron, as well as from the classic SVR3 syntax. AUTHORS
Paul Vixie <paul@vix.com> BSD
December 29, 1993 BSD
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