How to setup cronjob

[atortega]

Hi!

I had a php code that will send an email notice on 24 hours before my clients reservation date which is stored in mysql database.

The problem is that the code only works if I manually run the module everyday.

How can I set it up as a cronjob to run everyday?

Thanks.


atortega

[ray326]

man cron

man crontab

[atortega]

Thanks.

I had included the following line on my crontab file to run every 1:00 in the morning.:


0 1 * * * lynx -dump http://dumingag.net/automate.php > /dev/null


Is the entry on the file is correct? If not, what is theproper syntax.


atortega

[ray326]

I'm no BOFH but that looks ok to me.

[atortega]

All the while, I thought that the line below works but in reality it did not work.

0 1 * * * lynx -dump http://dumingag.net/automate.php > /dev/null

During my testing, I tried to run this line below directly to the shell prompt and it works.

lynx -dump "http://dumingag.thefreebizhost.com"

When I created a crontab file like this:

0 1 * * * lynx -dump "http://dumingag.thefreebizhost.com"
0 1 * * * echo "Sample Text to Display every 1 am."

The first line did not work but the second line works. So I presumed that the cron activates the job but the problem is why the first job did not work?

Is there anything I had to set before I could use the lynx command to run as a cronjob?

Please help.

[ray326]

These are just wild guesses so salt to taste. I really have no idea.

Maybe the shell that cron runs can't find lynx. Is it in the same dir as echo?

Maybe lynx needs some environment setting that isn't there running under cron.

Maybe lynx doesn't like the user "running" cron. Some programs either require root or will not allow root to run them.

Are there no log messages associated with the failures?

[atortega]

There are no log messages associated to the failure. Tha's why I did not notice it at first.

Lynx is a global command. You can run it in any directory.

[Stephen Philbin]

I shalln't bother you with annoying questions, but any links to some good reading on this you can offer?

[atortega]

Below are some useful links that I have read.

===================

www.uwsg.indiana.edu/usail/automation/cron.html (http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/usail/automation/cron.html)

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=cron&sektion=8

kb.indiana.edu/data/afiz.html (http://kb.indiana.edu/data/afiz.html)

======================

[NogDog]

cron normally runs from the Bourne shell (sh), whereas most *nix users run CSH or sometimes KSH by default. So, to get the correct search path and other environment variables, you may need to launch your cron job from your default shell:

0 1 * * * csh -c "lynx -dump http://dumingag.net/automate.php > /dev/null"

[Stephen Philbin]

Is bash (bourne again shell) ok? That's my default shell on SuSE. Any differences I should watch out for that ya know of? Or should I be fine?

[ray326]

Bash is almost universally the shell Linux systems so that's what you'd expect to be the default for cron there. In fact I bet 'sh' is linked to 'bash'.

[atortega]

I tried the code which NogDog reccommends but still it didn't run.

Is this a problem with lynx being run as a cron job?

[atortega]

Finally I got it run!!!

Thanks to all the guys who responded to my query.

Here's my final setting of my crontab file:

0 1 * * * /usr/local/bin/lynx -dump http://storycorps.securesites.net/DEVELOPMENT/secureStoryBooth/admin/automate.php > /dev/null

It is my obervation that whenever we used lynx in the crontab, we should include its full path otherwise it will not worked.

Once again, thanks to all of you.

[ray326]

The usr bin directories aren't in root's path because they contain questionable code so that may be an indication there of why it wasn't working.