Cron job help- Need to run the Autobuddy command every night...

Question

I have not written anything in the form of a Unix script for YEARS and YEARS. Our XServe was built in Advanced mode, currently running 10.5.4 Server. On this box, we are running Wiki and iChat. Since we built this box as an Advanced box the "Autobuddy" option was not available.
I have since enabled it at the command line, but I am told by Apple that there still needs to be a command run after every time a user logs in if you want others to Autobuddy. That command is this:
"sudo /usr/bin/jabber_autobuddy -m"
Now I think this would be pretty easy to setup as an automatic cron script, but like I said, I have not written something like this in forever. Not to mention, I am not 100% sure what needs to happen since running the script with an sudo command will prompt for the root password.
I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me write the script up, and give me some instructions on how to install it. I just want it run everyday, midnight is fine, I don't really care. All I know is that we have a dept of 150 people, and it grows and shrinks all the time. They can deal with a new user not being seen for 24-48 hours, I just want to get this automated.
Any helps would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks
Tom

Answer 1

If you want to keep it simple try [CronniX|http://www.abstracture.de/projects-en/cronnix] a graphical tool for setting up CRON jobs on OSX. Whilst I have not actually done an autobuuddy in this way, I cannot see any reason why it will not run as a Cron Job.
The proper way ideally would be to use the launchd service.
Something like this should work:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>org.jabber.dailyautobuddy</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/bin/jabber_autobuddy</string>
<string>-m</string>
</array>
<key>LowPriorityIO</key>
<true/>
<key><UserName></key>
<string>admin</string>
<key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
<dict>
<key>Hour</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Minute</key>
<integer>05</integer>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>
(not sure why, but tabs are not showing up, making this hard to read)
Message was edited by: Tim Harris