How to automate a script

[MJCfromCT]

I have a file called stats.pl, which I need to run in order to update a database which posts game server stats on my website. Can anyone give me a quick overview as to how to automate this process? Currently, every time I want to update the database, I have to manually run the file. I've read that using crontab can help automate this, but I am very unfamiliar with crontab. The computer is running Fedora Core 3. Thanks in advance.

[jjinno]

The answer (for GUI lovers) is a program called 'kcron' that comes as a part of KDE. kcron allows you to automate the running of any program, script, or other executable. Simple options allow you configure kcron to run different processes daily, monthly, hourly, or even every 5 minutes.

If you want to get more advanced scheduling, I would advise using the command-line interface (crontab), as it is much more powerful. I also advise though that you dont run large processes (or like what I run - an ever-increasing-size process) more than every 5 minutes. However much fun it may be to tie up your own server, running software update checks every second is overkill.

[MJCfromCT]

jjinno is correct, kcron has done the trick...however, we had to be careful as to which user(s) would be assigned to run the script file itself. If the user was not logged on, the script would not run.