tivo cron????????

[sqrl]

I setup as follows:

added "/var/hack/etc/"
added "/var/hack/etc/cron.d/"
added "/var/hack/cron/"

crontab file is parked at /var/hack/etc/crontab

Question 1. Where should file "cron" be placed??

did "chmod +x /var/hack/etc/crontab" (may or may not be proper but it took it)


crontab file as follows,

#crontab

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/user/bin:/var/hack/bin
MFS_DEVICE=/dev/hda10
TIVO_ROOT=""

#run mvchannels every 5 minutes till hell freezes over
/5 * * * * /var/hack/mvchannels.tcl -file=/var/hack/channels.dat > /dev/null &

#end of file

Question 2. Does this or is it supposed to trigger itself or is there something missing?

Question 3. where am I screwed up?????????????????

Question 4. Is there any hope of ever getting it to work?

[genericuser]

1) cron goes into /var/hack/cron (make sure you chmod +x /var/hack/cron/cron)

I would changes your crontab to look like this at the end:

#run mvchannels every 5 minutes till hell freezes over
*/5 * * * * /var/hack/mvchannels.tcl -file=/var/hack/channels.dat > /dev/null

Note the */5 at the beginning and the removal of the '&' at the end.

2) If you change the crontab to look like the line above it will run every 5 minutes. Assuming you have started cron up in your rc.sysinit file.

3) Your crontab entry was slightly skewed. See above. Also, make sure you start cron in rc.sysinit:

sleep 200
/var/hack/cron/cron &

4) yes, there is always hope.

[sqrl]

Thanks a million genericruiser, I have been several days learning from a book and sometimes it just doesnt soak in.....

[sqrl]

I made the changes and rebooted...
the log file says its triggering mvchannels but the locals are not moving
if I run a loop once with mvchannels the locals move but the mvchannels dont seem to be running when started by cron any suggestions?

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by sqrl
I made the changes and rebooted...
the log file says its triggering mvchannels but the locals are not moving
if I run a loop once with mvchannels the locals move but the mvchannels dont seem to be running when started by cron any suggestions?

I always had to use a 3 minute loop time when running mvchannels normally. 5 minutes always let channels drop back for me. I've just today switched to using cron, and it seems to be working fine using the same 3 minute setting.

[sqrl]

my problem is getting mvchannels to run at all with crontab.
the cron log says mvchannels are being started but the channels arent moving. After waiting 10 minutes and no change i run mvchannels from the bash and then mvchannels does its thing????????????????

[sqrl]

One more thing....
That log adds a line everytime mvchannels is run that means it will add 2000 lines to the log each week. Gonna be one big log by xmas

[genericuser]

I added the line

01 * * * * rm /var/hack/cron/log

to remove the log file at 1 minute after each hour. That takes card of the log file.

First thing to check. Is mvchannels in /var/hack? Is the channels.dat file in there too? Are they executable?

If so, I would change the '> /dev/null' to '> /var/hack/mvch.out 2>&1'

This will write the standard error and standard out to the file /var/hack/mvch.out. After cron has executed it, you can 'cat /var/hack/mvch.out' to see what is happening.