How do I create a cron job?

[finas]

Dear HP-UX Experts,
If I want to automate the cron job to be run at 12 noon and 5 p.m, on 15th,27th, and 28th of every month, every month during week days.
Is it ok if I put like this?

00 12,17 15,27,28 * 1-5

Thanks a bundle. Hope to hear from you soon.

[Dennis Handly]

Using 15,27,28 and 1-5 ORs them not ANDs them.
From your words above, that sounds like you want inclusive OR?

If you want AND you'll need to put one of these checks into your script.

[finas]

Hi Sir,
Thanks for the reply
If I understand you correctly, basically
I would like the the monitoring to run (00 12,17) 12.00 noon and 17.00 p.m.(15,27,28 *) on 15th, 27th and 28th of every month (1-5) from monday to friday. Will it run what I want it to be?

[Irappa]

Hi,

00 12,17 15,27,28 * 1-5 >>your cron activity.

This must work according to your requirement.


Regards.

[finas]

I've editted the crontab file this morning. I've directed the monitoring output to my email. Surprisingly it sent me an email today at 12 noon. but today is 12th of the month. i set it to run on 15th,27th and 28th? would really appreciate your advise?

[Mridul Shrivastava]

Do you mean to say that if dates 15,27,28 are falling on saturday or sunday then this cron job should not run ?

[Mridul Shrivastava · Accepted solution]

as per the entries in the crontab it is doing correct.. see as per the above entries.. It will run the job if it is 15,27,28 or Mon-Friday. If anyone of these matches then this will execute the job.

Now you want it to run on 15,27,28 only if it falls on Mon-Friday then in crontab you should have an entry like

00 12,17 15,27,28 * *

Then in the script it self you need to check either it is Mon-Friday or not?

I don't find anything to do multiple checks using crontab for AND operations....

[Dennis Handly]

As I said before, you can't use English to describe it. Or you must use lots more words than you have.

Or you must use C boolean operators.

>(15,27,28) on 15th, 27th and 28th of every month (1-5) from monday to friday.

So you want it to run on 15,27,28 ONLY when it is also Monday-Friday? Boolean AND.

>Mridul: Then in the script ... you need to check either it is Mon-Friday

DOW=$(date +'%w')
if [ $DOW -eq 0 -o $DOW -eq 6 ]; then
exit 0 # exit on Sun or Sat
fi

>Mridul: I don't find anything to do multiple checks using crontab for AND operations

tztab(4) lets you do AND, so don't confuse them.

[Dennis Handly]

Since you are new to the forum, please read how to assign points:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33

[finas]

Hiii Mr Mridul, Denis and Irappa,
You are all very helpful.... Thanks a lot. I need clear cut example to understand this new field. Thanks a lot. I'm sorry if you are not happy with the points I rated. No worries, I'll post lotsa more questions here. :) Thank you

[finas]

replace 1-5 with *