UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have cron scheduing that after hotbackup omniback kicks in and back up tape.

00 17 * * * /usr/local/bin/archbakPRD/mainPRDbackup.sh > /usr/local/bin/archbakPRD/dbfcopy.log 2 >&1

above cron can fired every night at 5PM but omnibackup need to have seperate name for each backup ( i.e: PRD_backup_Mon_A, PRD_backup_Tue_A, etc )

Above is not a problem since all I have to do is

00 17 * * 1, 00 17 * * 2, 00 17 * * 3, 00 17 * * 4, etc with different day hardcoded in backp script.

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Now My problem
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we have two set of tape drive and rotate tapes inside. For example

1st and 3rd Monday we use PRD_backup_Mon_A

2nd and 4th Monday we use PRD_backup_Mon_B


I know I can create 8 set of cron schedule but how do I go about setting up the cron so that it will run every other Monday for "PRD_backup_Mon_A" and every other Monday for "PRD_backup_Mon_B"?

any help will be appreciated

Pau

Hi.

Sadly, cron doesn't work in weeks, only days of the week and days of the month.

Perhaps you could have a single cronjob running every monday and make a minor change to your script?

Besides, you might have 5 Monday's in a month. Then what?

Crude example:

Code:

if [ -r next_backup_is_B ]; then
  set tape device to "PRD_backup_Mon_B"
  rm next_backup_is_B
else
  set tape device to "PRD_backup_Mon_A"
  touch next_backup_is_B
fi
(the rest of you script...)

Failing that perhaps more "intelligent" scheduling software could be used.