Re: Trouble with cron (Attn: base-files maintainer)

[Igor Peshansky <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Lst Recv wrote:

> I'm having trouble using cron on cygwin.
>
> I just installed cron using setup.exe.  It didn't create any rc.d files,
> so I started it manually by typing cron at the prompt.  (I'm a member of
> group 0).  Although the cron process is running, it doesn't seem to be
> running my cron job.

Since you're on WinXP, you have two options: run cron from the command
line, or run it as a service.  To install it as a service, please run the
cron-config script.

> Any suggestions on what to do?  My goal is to get the machine to shut
> itself off at a certain time (necessary to stop those late night
> hack-sessions!).

First test it with the "hello world" of crontabs:

* * * * * /usr/bin/date >> /tmp/CRON_DATE 2>&1

There are at least two potential problems with your crontab: no explicit
path to the executable (don't assume the PATH is going to be the same as
the one you have in your shell), and no stdout/stderr redirection (which
means cron will try -- and fail -- to mail you the output).

Also, check out the Windows Event Log for any messages from cron.

> PS Is there a way to change the title of the cygwin window, like I can
> type "title" in a cmd window?

Look at the (commented out) definition of the "settitle()" function in
your .bashrc.  Note that as-is, the definition there is wrong: to be able
to use it, you'll need to change "^[" to the actual Esc character, and
"^G" to the actual Ctrl-G character.  Or use the following definition
(will only work in bash):

function settitle() { echo -ne "\e]2;$@\a\e]1;$@\a"; }

HTH,
	Igor
-- 
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