Ubuntu
cron package

Help to schedule a job using cron

Asked by Mathew Roy

hi all.
thanx in advance..
I want to execute the program "Transmission" at 2:00am. I tried using cron but it does not seem to working.
this is what I did.
crontab -e
# 00 2 * * * transmission

then saved it...
but nothng happend at the time...
is there anything wrong in what I have done?
I am a ubundu newbe. So plz help...

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Jeruvy
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Revision history for this message
Brewster Malevich (brews) said : 		#1

Run crontab -e with sudo and loose the hash/pound before the "cron" command.
Ooo, also, if you shut off your machine alot, you might want to consider "anacron" instead of "cron".

Community docs has a handy how-to:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto

Hope this helps! :-)

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Mathew Roy (mathewroy007) said : 		#2

yes I did as Brews said. But sadly it does no work for me.
The cpu usage momentarely goes up but nothing happens. By the way, in which file/ path I should be saving the crontab?

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Jeruvy (jeruvy) said : 		#3

crontab - e <details> will add(edit) a crontab with your permissions

sudo crontab -e .... will add(edit) a crontab with root permissions.

If the first character in the crontab entry is a # then it's a comment and nothing is performed.

[sudo] crontab -l will list your entries to confirm they are setup properly.

HTH.

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#4

GUI option would be gnome-schedule [universe].
add:
http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2009040900535OSHLSW

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Mathew Roy (mathewroy007) said : 		#5

thanz 4 help all of u.
I dont knw y this is not working for me....
Well plz post the exat command to start Transmission (the torrent downloader) at 02:00 everyday.

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Mathew Roy (mathewroy007) said : 		#6

plz post the exat command to start Transmission (the torrent downloader) at 02:00 everyday.
Plz also suggest any alternatives..

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Best Jeruvy (jeruvy) said : 		#7

Ok, here ya go.

$ crontab -e

[Opens user crontab file in Nano, use down arrow to move to the first blank line and add]

0 2 * * * Transmission

[Press Control and O to SAVE, and then Control and X to EXIT Nano]

Done.

Now since Transmission is a GUI based tool, it's possible you could run multiple instances of this when you probably don't want to, so it may be better to execute a bash script that first checks if Transmission is running and IF NOT, then start it up. But try this first to see if it works for you.

Good luck,

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Mathew Roy (mathewroy007) said : 		#8

Thanks Jeruvy, that solved my question.