Hello Nicholas,

>> For a task to be run every 20 minutes I would simply use a crontab
>> line as:

>> */20 * * * * //>> You could for example use the cron line to run a backup of all your
>> user accounts at 5 a.m every week with:
>> 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/

> As you mention in your first crontab line, it is good practice to use the 
> full path to the program or script in crontab. So your second line would 
> be better with: /bin/tar, or /usr/bin/tar - even though tar is most likely
> in your system PATH settings.

Ironically, the first example is from what I use in my crontab and the second
example was taken from Crontab itself as in:

# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
#
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
#
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').#
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# daemon's notion of time and timezones.
#
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
#
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/

Jeff


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