Cron jobs?
 

I have a webpage that I pay $5 a month for, and It has unlimited mysql databases, 200mb of space, and control panel. I noticed theres something called CRON JOBS which makes some scripts or something run by themselves. I was wondering... does it work for programs? And if so can I use it to make an entire server just from the webpage?

Cron jobs are scripts or programs that will start on a specified schedule. For example, a maintenance task that runs at 3am every morning, or a reporting task that runs on the 1st of each month.

To start up the server via cron jobs you'd need to compile the world and zone servers to unix -- "cron" is a unix utility so I'm assuming that server runs unix.

Also, be sure the sysadmins allow you to run stuff like this on the server. When you pay $5/mo, I highly doubt they intend for cpu-intensive stuff like an EQ world server to be running on their system. To do it without their permission would be a good way to lose that 200mb of space and unlimited MySQL for $5/mo :shock:

While cron originated on UNIX, you can get versions for other operating systems too, e.g. windows:

http://www.kalab.com/freeware/cron/cron.htm