Linux/cron

cron

"The software utility Cron is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like computer operating systems. People who set up and maintain software environments use cron to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts) to run periodically at fixed times, dates, or intervals. It typically automates system maintenance or administration—though its general-purpose nature makes it useful for things like connecting to the Internet and downloading email at regular intervals.[1] The name cron comes from the Greek word for time, χρόνος chronos." [1]

Installation

yum install vixie-cron crontabs
service crond restart

crontabs

Crontab - Quick reference:

Commands:

export EDITOR=vi   # specify a editor to open crontab file.

crontab -e      Edit your crontab file, or create one if it doesn't already exist.
rontab -l      Display your crontab file.
crontab -r      Remove your crontab file.
crontab -v      Display the last time you edited your crontab file. (This option is only available on a few systems.)

crontab layout:

# min hr day mon wkday   cmd

 *     *     *     *     *  command to be executed
 -     -     -     -     -
 |     |     |     |     |
 |     |     |     |     +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
 |     |     |     +------- month (1 - 12)
 |     |     +--------- day of month (1 - 31)
 |     +----------- hour (0 - 23)
 +------------- min (0 - 59)

What are cron and crontab, and how do I use them?:

Field	Value	Description
minute	0-59	The exact minute that the command sequence executes
hour	0-23	The hour of the day that the command sequence executes
day	1-31	The day of the month that the command sequence executes
month	1-12	The month of the year that the command sequence executes
weekday	0-6	The day of the week that the command sequence executes (Sunday = 0, Monday = 1, Tuesday = 2, and so forth)

All marker: Use '*' to indicate this should happen for all time increments for the selected column

Step:

*/10 * * * *   [sometask]        # do every 10 minutes

Lists:

0,15,30,45 * * * *   [sometask]  # list of minutes
0-4,8-12 * * * *     [sometask]  # range and list of minutes
0 0-23/2 * * * *     [sometask]  # range with step (run ever other hour)

New line character '%'

 0 22 * * 1-5    mail -s "It’s 10pm" joe%Joe,%%Where are your kids?%

Cron Environment Variables:

# use /bin/sh to run commands, no matter what /etc/passwd says
SHELL=/bin/sh
# mail any output to ‘paul’, no matter whose crontab this is
MAILTO=paul

Special strings:

              string         meaning
              ------         -------
              @reboot        Run once, at startup.
              @yearly        Run once a year, "0 0 1 1 *".
              @annually      (same as @yearly)
              @monthly       Run once a month, "0 0 1 * *".
              @weekly        Run once a week, "0 0 * * 0".
              @daily         Run once a day, "0 0 * * *".
              @midnight      (same as @daily)
              @hourly        Run once an hour, "0 * * * *".

Help:

man 5 crontab

Run script on reboot: [2]

@reboot python /home/pi/MyScript.py &

See Also

• at

keywords

linux cron