Heh.... That screen with "tilde" characters is the 'vi' linux text editor... Take a quick tutorial on 'vi' by writing 'vi' at the command prompt.
'vi' (pronounced as v-a-j) is the default text-editor in linux. Similarly, you can edit the /etc/crontab file with your favorite editor and place the "* * * * * /script/to/be/exec" line directly there. HTH Regards, James. -- ___ __ | \ \ /| ___|_ | Linux user #324517 | _ \ | \/ | _| / james.myweblog.com |__|_/ _\_|_||_| ___|___| .:. aka MadviP .:. >>From: Ramon Casha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Reply-To: Malta Linux User Group - general list <[email protected]> >>To: Malta Linux User Group - general list <[email protected]> >>Subject: Re: [LINUX.ORG.MT] Crontab Creation >>Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 14:26:18 +0200 >> >>1. Create a shell script which updates your virus definitions. Test it >>to make sure it works. > > A Perl Script already exists which came with F-Prot, it works I updated > the > definitions today. > >> >>2. Check if you have a directory called /etc/cron.weekly. If you do, >>then the easiest way to add a weekly job is to plonk the shell script >>from #1 in that directory. There's also cron.monthly, cron.daily etc. >>depending how frequent you want it. > > Those directories exist, plus cron.hourly, and cron.d (what does this mean > cron.d?). What is plonking and how do I plonk the script to #1? > >> >>that's all... unless you want more precise control: >> >>3. If you want more precise control, for instance specifying exactly >>which day of the month or week you want it to run in, create a cron >>entry. To do this, login as whichever user has permissions to update the >>virus database (probably root), then type "crontab -e". If this is the >>first time you're running it, it will create the crontab file. In this >>file, add a single line: >>0 8 * * * /usr/bin/update-viruses >>In the above line, I'm assuming that the shell-script to update the >>viruses is called /usr/bin/update-viruses. Change it to your >>virus-updating script. >>The first part consists of the minutes, hours, day-of-month, month and >>day-of-week. So, in the above line I'm telling it to execute the script >>at 8 am (minutes=0, hours=8) of any day, month or weekday. To make it >>run only on the first of each month at midnight, do the following: >>0 0 1 * * /usr/bin/update-viruses >>...and to run at 8.30pm every saturday, do this: >>30 20 * * 6 /usr/bin/update-viruses >> >>Whatever you do, make sure you specify the first field (minutes) to some >>value, or it will run every minute! > > Ok I think I understood this, but when I run crontab -e in the console the > screen gets filled with lines with just ~ on the sides and some details at > the bottom of the screen, I cannot even scroll up to see what happened > before. What should I do exactly? > > The first thing I do is change to the cron.weekly directory in the console > and then I do crontab -e and I get what I described above. I am really > stuck > right now. > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus > > _______________________________________________ > MLUG-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailserv.megabyte.net/mailman/listinfo/mlug-list >
