I would like to set my server to remove files in /tmp everyday. I would like to use cron for this task. So can anyone tell me the step-by-step of what I need to do?

Thank you.

crontab -e as the root user then insert

* 0 * * * rm -rf /tmp/*

Originally posted by zupanm
crontab -e as the root user then insert

* 0 * * * rm -rf /tmp/*

Haha right on :)

do "man crontab"

Originally posted by zupanm
crontab -e as the root user then insert

* 0 * * * rm -rf /tmp/*

Ouch... don't you mean

0 0 * * * rm -rf /tmp/*

Your version will run every minute between midnight and 1 AM. ;)

If you're running Red Hat you might want to take a look at the tmpwatch program. It helps keep your /tmp directory nice and tidy :D I'm not sure if other distros have this or not.

Do a man tmpwatch for instructions.

Richard

Originally posted by RutRow


Ouch... don't you mean

0 0 * * * rm -rf /tmp/*

Your version will run every minute between midnight and 1 AM. ;)

Ok, now I am confused :( ... Whose is correct?

Originally posted by Noldar
If you're running Red Hat you might want to take a look at the tmpwatch program. It helps keep your /tmp directory nice and tidy :D I'm not sure if other distros have this or not.

Do a man tmpwatch for instructions.

Richard

Actually if you run RedHat you don't have to do anything about it. RedHat by default run tmpwatch automatically every day.

It is probably not a good idea to rm -rf /tmp/*, as some process might still be using temporary files at the time of deletion. Tmpwatch is safe however, as it will only delete old files that probably is not being used anymore.