[SOLVED] Cron script help

[Jamwa]

I am trying to write a cron job to get some regular backups. This is the command I hava in a file in the cron.d folder:

* * * * * root cd /var/www/html/backup; wget -c http://192.168.0.10/backup.`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tar.gz

But I get an error message,

/bin/bash: -c: line 0: bash unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``

I have even tried a different approach:

* * * * * root cd /var/www/html/backup; wget -c http://192.168.0.10/backup.$(date +%Y-%m-%d).tar.gz

To which I get

/bin/bash: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `)'

The command runs just fine straight from the command line. What could I be doing wrong?

[PatMcLJr]

I dunno,
maybe you could separate the command and the cron into a bash file and run that from the cron?

might be easier to debug

Pat Jr.

[marko]

I got this to work:

* * * * * root cd /var/www/html/backup; wget -c http://192.168.0.10/backup.`date +\%Y-\%m-\%d`.tar.gz

Note the back slashes before each %

actually I didn't get the username (root here) part to work, it would always take the username option as being part of the command and would not work. I don't get that since the example in the /etc/crontab file shows there is a username option. So I didn't actually use your command but I tried to approximate it with (again with no username between the last * and "cd" )

36 * * * * cd /home/mos/local; touch foocrontest.`date +\%Y-\%m-\%d`.tar.gz

Of course I don't have a remote server to use wget to get some file with a timestamp in the name so I cheated with using touch. You might still have parsing problems with that http URL that I didn't have

this successfully put a file in /home/mos/local -->

ls -l local
-rw-rw-r--. 1 mos mos 0 Jun 3 17:36 foocrontest.2011-06-03.tar.gz

[Jamwa]

marko thanks. Was not at all thinking about the back slashes. Your solution works ok.

PatMcLJr thanks but I tried that too but it was not successful

[marko]

Originally Posted by Jamwa

marko thanks. Was not at all thinking about the back slashes. Your solution works ok.

PatMcLJr thanks but I tried that too but it was not successful

you could also simplify the cron command by doing this:

* * * * * root wget -c -P /var/www/html/backup http://192.168.0.10/backup.`date +\%Y-\%m-\%d`.tar.gz