Run crontab non-interactively from script

croncrontabremote

I would like to schedule some tasks on remote servers by script but am having an issue with crontab expecting to be run interactively the first time. As far as I understand crontab needs to be initialized by first running crontab -e. Which causes it to prompt which editor to use and launch that editor.

I need initialize crontab and schedule a task on too many servers to log into each individually. Is there a way I can avoid the interactive part or script it?

The servers and my client are running Ubuntu 13.04.

Best Answer

From StackOverflow: Linux - How do I create a crontab thru a script

Cron jobs usually are stored in a per-user file under /var/spool/cron

The simplest thing for you to do is probably just create a text file with the job configured, then copy it to the cron spool folder and make sure it has the right permissions.

Related Solutions

Centos – How to use crontab to run a script as nobody

I'm guessing you are posting the contents of crontab -e or crontab -l?

This is the crontab file beloning to user "root", and that file does not support specifying a user to run the command as (as it's generally a file used for scheduling personal jobs).
Look at /etc/crontab instead which is the system-wide crontab and has an additional field: the user field. Try adding a line like this to /etc/crontab:

15 17 * * * nobody /usr/local/bin/bashscript.sh

Open a terminal from a Crontab

You can't, safely. cron jobs run independent of the desktop session where X is running, therefore you can't do this without causing security violations.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Centos – How to use crontab to run a script as nobody

Open a terminal from a Crontab

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