Am I setting this up for a cron job correctly?

[AboveNBeyond]

Hello all...
Here is my script I would like to run every day at 1615 (4:15pm)

rsync -av --exclude=Music --exclude=Virtual_Machines /home/<user> <user>@<server>:/home

I have saved it as home/<user>/scripts/desklapsync.sh with perms set to 644.

So I would like to have it run as a cron job.
Here is my crontab...

15 16 * * * home/<user>/scripts/desklapsync.sh

Is this all correct?

And if so, how can I tell if the job ran?

Thanks.

[anomie]

I'd add a couple things to the script (sh-bang line, FQ binary name, and exit).

#!/bin/bash

/usr/local/bin/rsync -av --exclude=Music --exclude=Virtual_Machines /home/<user> <user>@<server>:/home

exit 0

Replace '/usr/local/bin' with the correct FQ path to rsync.

I am presuming you've already tested that this works properly outside of cron...

how can I tell if the job ran?

Check the cron logs in /var/log. Also, you're putting rsync in verbose mode, so you're going to be getting system email to the account that is running the rsync. (By default stdout/stderr chatter from cron will go to the user's mailbox.) So check with mail.

[anomie]

You're also missing the '/' that should precede /home in the crontab entry.

[AboveNBeyond]

Thanks Anomie... just a couple more questions...
1) Does my cron tab entry look correct?
2) How can I tell if the cron job ran successfully?
It sends an email, no?

[anomie]

1. No, your crontab entry does not look correct. See my second post above. The path to /home/user is missing the first '/'.

2. See my first post above. /var/log/cron & check the user's mail (assuming you installed this as a user's crontab).

[scm]

Also, if you're expecting cron to execute your script you should really make it executable (755, subject to which user is running the cron job).