UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all.
basically i need to run a script every 30 minutes.
my script is simply an error report:

errpt

thats it, is there anyway to make this happen every 30 minutes
without having to type errpt in, the script will get bigger as i add more things to do but just need to know how to automate it.
Also dont know anything about cron
thanks guys.

Seek and ye shall find.

Search for crontab here on this forum.

Here is a cron entry that would probably work:

Code:

0,30 * * * * /mydir/errpt

However, there are some gotchas:
1. You may not have permission to run cron jobs, so cron.allow would need your account name adding. (And easy way to check is to issue the command "crontab -e" and see if it errors or works.)
2. Your script may not work depending upon the scripting language you've used and OS you're running on (ie. Solaris comes with only Bourne shell support in cron).
3. Your script may assume environment variables that work when you run it interactively, but aren't there when it's run via cron.
4. Your OS (bloomin' Solaris again!) may be configured to only allow a limited number of concurrent cron jobs, so other schedules may impact yours.

Have fun!

I've just checked on Solaris 9 on SPARC, it happily runs cron jobs using sh, ksh or csh. Not sure what you were implying.

I'm pretty this refers to the use of logic in the command in the crontab, or at least that is the only place I can see it making any difference. The job itself is executable or it is not, the interpreter makes no difference.

... or the interpretor depended on shared libraries found on LD_LIBRARY_PATH that was not set up.

true; I limiting myself to the crontab but yes that is a possibility also.

Then again everybody know that CRON will only give an environment consisting of
HOME
LOGNAME
PATH guaranteed only to find all of the standard utilities.
SHELL

and code accordning don't they