Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Sorry About the Multiple Copies

Sorry About the Multiple Copies
If like everyone else you received 12 copies of OLDaily yesterday, please accept my apologies. The cause was a crontab error. A cron table is a list of commands to be executed on a server at a set time. The command to send the newsletter every day is:

0 15 * * * /var/www/cgi-bin/admin.cgi www.downes.ca send_newsletter off codeword 2>&1 | mail -s "Email Results" downes

The important bit is the 0 15 at the start, which means that the command should be executed at 15 hours 0 minutes (Houston time, which is where my server is located). Yesterday, I set the command as follows:

* 15 * * * /var/www/cgi-bin/admin.cgi www.downes.ca send_newsletter off codeword 2>&1 | mail -s "Email Results" downes

which means that it was instructed to send the newsletter at 15 hours and every minute. I was on my was home as it happened, but I managed to catch it and stop it before you got 60 newsletters instead of 12. For which I breathed some sight of relief.

Anyhow, sorry, it was the first time I've ever done that, and I hope it never happens again.

Stephen Downes