[plug] VNC Shell Script

[James Devenish]

Hi Brock,

In message <FE30FEFC-30A1-11D9-8F16-000D936A747A at iinet.net.au>
on Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 05:47:09PM +0800, Brock Woolf wrote:
> */2 * * * * brock /brock_scripts/rfbserver.sh

Firstly: when you say that this doesn't work, there should be some log
messages and e-mail that indicates (a) whether cron attempted to run
your script and (b) what went wrong. There might be a mailbox sitting
in /var/mail/brock or /var/spool/mail/root or whatnot.

Secondly: where is the rfbserver.sh script located? You have written in
your crontab that the brock_scripts folder is at the topmost folder
level of your filesystem. In contrast, most UNIX people would have their
personal scripts in their "home directories", not at the top level of
the hard drive. For instance: /home/brock/brock_scripts/rfbserver.sh
or ~/brock_scripts/rfbserver.sh

Thirdly: in order for a shell script to be run as a programme, it must
have "execution permissions" enabled. `ls -l /path/to/rfbserver.sh` will
indicate to us whether this is the case (perhaps you will need to do
`chmod +x /path/to/rfbserver.sh` to make this happen). The '.sh'
filename extension has no semantic meaning or function in UNIX -- it
is the execution permissions that matter.

Fourthly: see whatever post Cameron cited, as I remember someone else
was having with crontabs a while ago.