I have been wanting to start using scheduled tasks in my SME 8 beta. I looked up the contribs for a solution and found Crontab Manager and tried installing it. Here is a link to the Contribs page:
http://wiki.contribs.org/Crontab_ManagerLooking it over, I see that even with a Server Manager interface, it is stll necessary to log in from the command line to SME and "expand-templates". It seems to me to defeat the whole purpose of a Server Manager interface and I think that this thread represents the preferable solution for anyone not adept at using cron:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,29433.0.htmlAnd especially this entry here:
mkdir -p /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/crontab/
pico -w /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/crontab/your_file_name
add your cron entries
/sbin/e-smith/expand-template etc/crontab
more /etc/crontab - just to verify your new entry is there, then
/etc/e-smith/events/actions/restart-crond
Of course you have to log in to the remote SME server to make those entries, but since you have to do that anyway using Crontab Manager, you might as well do it all there using PuTTY or WinSCP.
It helps to know also that "pico" is just an editor and you can use any editor, like the one found in WinSCP to create the file.
The difference between the entries provided by Crontab Manager and the file needed by cron is pretty transparent and there are tutorials on the internet. Google "tutorial cron" for a quick list.
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