[vox-tech] crontab

[Ken Bloom]

On Sun, 2009-09-06 at 20:23 -0400, Hai Yi wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Tony Cratz<cratz at hematite.com> wrote:
> > Hai Yi wrote:
> >> this might be too simple a question to ask, however i am doing it anyway.
> >>
> >> i want to run a cron job to back up the dump files from my database
> >> tables on a weekly basis. I've never set a cron job before. So by
> >> following the "goolge-search" result, I did these:
> >>
> >> I create a text file and add a line to set time, date and my script,
> >> name the file "cronjob.txt"
> >> 59 23 * * * /home/hai/Scripts/backup.sh
> >>
> >> from CLI: crontab cronjob.txt
> >> confirm the job: crontab -l
> >>
> >> then I sat tight waiting for the magic moment. Nothing happened.
> >
> >                What do your logs show?
> >                You have read your logs correct?
> kind of embarrassment, where to look?
> 

Cron emails you the output from any cronjobs that produced output
(including errors). Depending on your mail configuration, you'll find
the mails in /var/spool/mail/$USER, and you can check them with the mail
command or using mutt.

(If mutt is configured already for checking other mail, make sure that
your .muttrc has a mailboxes line with the path to your local mail spool
in it. Then you can use mutt -y to view your mail.)

--Ken