Cron job for Urpmi

[Tymestream]

Good Morning,

 

I have been trying to set up a cron job for urpmi to update my sources (more an excercise in setting up cron jobs really) For learning purposes I am using Webmin to edit my cron jobs.

 

This is what I have:

 

/usr/sbin/urpmi.removemedia -a /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia --update updates ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandrakelinux/official/updates/10.1/main_updates with media_info/hdlist.cz  /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia main ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/main with media_info/hdlist.cz  /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/contrib with media_info/hdlist.cz  /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandrake/10.1 with hdlist.cz

 

This is the error I get:

 

Output from command /usr/sbin/urpmi.removemedia -a /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia --update updates ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandrakelinux/official/updates/10.1/main_updates with media_info/hdlist.cz /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia main ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/main with media_info/hdlist.cz /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/contrib with media_info/hdlist.cz /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandrake/10.1 with hdlist.cz ..


usage: urpmi.removemedia [-a] <name> ...
where <name> is a medium name to remove.
 --help         - print this help message.
 -a             - select all media.
 -c             - clean headers cache directory.
 -y             - fuzzy match on media names.
 -q             - quiet mode.
 -v             - verbose mode.

unknown options '--update'

 

Maybe based on what you see you can tell me why this is not working. I do not know, for instance, if you can place multiple command in a cron job (seems to me you would have to be able too) and if so, how do you seperate the commands? (ie with a ; or a , or just a space)

 

Finally, I know that webmin is just an interface for cron management, so it is adjusting an actual /etc/cron file, but I cannot find it in any of the cron directories. If I could see the actual file I am sure it would be helpful.

 

Thanks again,

[Guest anon]

You need to enter each one seperately in webmin AFAIK

 

Each user has their own cron file so you will see different files for /you , /root, etc if they exist.

To see what your cron jobs look like open a consol and:

crontab -e

this will either show you your current jobs or create the file.

You could edit this file to look something like this:

# * * * * * /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia --update updates ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandrakelinux/official/updates/10.1/main_updates with media_info/hdlist.cz
# * * * * * /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia main ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/main with media_info/hdlist.cz

etc, etc. then set up the times in webmin for each job.

 

More info on cron: http://mandrakeusers.org/old_docs/admin/acron2.html

[Tymestream]

You are a wealth of knowledge anon! Many thanks.

[SurfahBoy808]

for some reason when I set up a cron job with webmin, it seems like it doesn't execute it. I have a cron job that is suppose to "updatedb" every time I boot, but it doesn't do it. Cause it'll say my database is old and I have to manually update it myself. There are other things I've set as a cron and webmin wont execute it.

[Guest anon]

When you click on "run now" does it execute? any errors listed in the output ?

do you have permission to execute?

[Tymestream]

In regards to the original message that I posted, while it is true that webmin requires seperate entries, it was very easy to work aroung this. Pointing a cron process to a bash script solved my problem very nicely.

 

#!bash/sh

/usr/sbin/urpmi.removemedia -a;
/usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia --update updates ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandrakelinux/official/updates/10.
1/main_updates with media_info/hdlist.cz;
/usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia main ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/main with media_in
fo/hdlist.cz;
/usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrakelinux/official/10.1/i586/media/contrib
with media_info/hdlist.cz;
/usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandrake/10.1 with hdlist.cz

 

This has the added effect of making your crontab file easier and cleaner to read.

 

Don't ya just love automating tasks

[Guest anon]

Never thought of that ! B)

[papaschtroumpf]

Never thought of that !  B)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LOL!

[SurfahBoy808]

sorry for the long reply, but I found out that the webmin cron job "start on boot" doesn't work. So as long as I put a time to start, it works. I had to put updatedb as a cron.