Stephen Downes
Knowledge, Learning, Community
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.
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, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca
Copyright 2024
Last Updated: May 01, 2024 4:05 p.m.
Last Updated: May 01, 2024 4:05 p.m.
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