Cron

The Linux way to schedule commands.

http://www.adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference

Setting up a script to run a script in your home folder every five minutes (and log it)

 crontab -e

and edit it to something like:

*/5 * * * * /home/mmurtaugh/xpub.sh > /home/mmurtaugh/xpub.log

This runs the script xpub.sh every 5 minutes, and writes its outputs to xpub.log.

Log errors

You can let your program its STDOUT to a logfile, to see if your cronjob works.

Tip: use "append", with double ">>", to see if it is running:

*/5 * * * * /home/mmurtaugh/xpub.sh >> /home/mmurtaugh/xpub.log

Then, you can add 2>&1 to the end of your line, to write STDERR to STDOUT as well. So in other words: it catches any errors and writes them to your log file.

*/5 * * * * /home/mmurtaugh/xpub.sh >> /home/mmurtaugh/xpub.log 2>&1

Argh how to check my cron timing?

https://crontab.guru/