I am posting this here because I need a some what quick reply. I have never used a cron, never needed to. What I need it to do is run a perl script every 15 mintues. Can this be done and how? Thanks.

You need shell access.
Write in shell "crontab -e"
and put this line:
0,15,30,45,60 * * * * <PATH_TO_SCRIPT>
then exit..

That's it.

Thanks alot for that help, just one question though, why is the **** needed?

first value - 0,15,30... means what minute in a hour, so that 15,30 means every 15th and 30th min of hour
second value * - hours - so that * means every hour
third value - * - every day
4th - * - every week
5th - * - every year

Hope it helps

you can also use

*/15 * * * * /path/to/file.pl

0,15,30,45,60 * * * * <PATH_TO_SCRIPT>

Does it need the 0, wouldnt that be the same as 60?

:( I am telling this stuff to my friend who has to do it for me, I am hosted with him. He says he only has access to a cron manager, these are his options:

Minute: <INSERT WHATEVER>
Hour: <INSERT WHATEVER>
Day: <INSERT WHATEVER>
Month: <INSERT WHATEVER>
Weekday: <INSERT WHATEVER>
Command: <INSERT COMMAND>

Know what he should put in?

Try with this
Minute: */15
Hour: *
Day: *
Month: *
Weekday: *
Command: /path/to/file.pl

Originally posted by CritticAge


Does it need the 0, wouldnt that be the same as 60?

No, theoretically, the 60th minute does not exist, cause it starts at 0. 60 in this case would be useless.

*/15 * * * * <bleh> is more appropriate.

Thanks alot, it works now :)

So, if I read this right, to have a command run every 12 hours, it would be:

* /12 * * * <PATH_TO_SCRIPT>

And for a weekly backup something like:

* * /7 * * <PATH_TO_SCRIPT>

Would this work for coying directories with the cp command and with the mysqldump command? Looks far simpler than downloading one of those scripts for this...

I just want to backup a few mySQL databases to a second harddrive every 12 hours and a few sites to the same harddrive every week and am trying to see what the easiest way would be to do this.

Tazzman: Yes, Yes, and Yes.