cron in 2 steps

cron lets you schedule linux commands to execute on a regular basis.

For instance, say we want to run the command "wget http://yourdomain.com/backup.zip" each hour, that downloads a backup of one of your websites.

Step 1: Write the cron command

Here is the cron command you would need:

0 * * * * wget http://yourdomain.com/backup.zip

You can either memorize the crontab syntax, or just this simple Javascript crontab gui will easily generate the code for you.

Step 2: Append the command to your crontab file

There are 2 crontab files that get executed every minute. 1 of them is found in /etc or similar and is controlled by root only. In addition, each user can have a crontab.

To add your command to crontab type:

crontab -e

This will open vim, and you can then paste and save your crontab file.

Viola!

Notes: 1. If you are using cron in cygwin, follow these steps after installing the cron package with the cygwin installer to install cron as a service:

cygrunsrv -I cron -p /usr/sbin/cron -a D net start cron

If there are problems, check the cron.log file in your home directory.