I am having some trouble setting a command to execute in crontab. I am doing a crontab -e "username" to edit the cron entries for the user I want. I know how to add in minutes, hours, month etc. The problem I am having I guess is with the proper syntax of the command I want to execute. I have a command that resides at: /global/web/web/web/generic/admin The command I run manually from that directory daily is: ./batch.pl --backup -p '(^[A-Za-z0-9_])' What would be the proper syntax to add that command to a cron job?

Why don't you create a script like this: # mybackup.ss script # whatever your shell is #!/bin/ksh export PATH=... # whatever your path is when you run from the command line cd /global/web/web/web/generic/admin ./batch.pl --backup -p '(^[A-Za-z0-9_])' # end script

here ya go man * * * * * command to be executed - - - - - | | | | | | | | | +----- day of week ( 0 - 6) (Sunday=0) | | | +------- month (1 - 12) | | +--------- day of month (1 - 31) | +----------- hour (0 - 23) +------------- min (0 - 59)