On Thu, 2004-10-28 at 10:49, Chris Pinnock wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 11:33:59AM +0200, Zafer Aydogan wrote:
> > Hej Newsgroup, 
> > 
> > Why doesn't cron understand this:
> > 
> > */5 * * * * command
> > 
> > to repeat a command every 5 minutes ?
> 
> According to the manual page crontab(5) this should work.
> 
>        Step values can be used in conjunction with ranges.  Following a  range
>        with  ``/<number>''  specifies  skips of the number's value through the
>        range.  For example, ``0-23/2'' can be used in the hours field to spec-
>        ify command execution every other hour (the alternative in the V7 stan-
>        dard is ``0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22'').  Steps are also  permitted
>        after  an asterisk, so if you want to say ``every two hours'', just use
>        ``*/2''.

It certainly works for me.  In fact, the default root entry uses it for
atrun...

*/10 *   *   *   *   /usr/libexec/atrun                      

Check that you have permission to run cron jobs on the machine...

R.