Crontab is a short form of cron table. It is a configuration file that specifies shell commands to run periodically on a given schedule.
Questions tagged [crontab]
307 questions
74
votes
7 answers
Run a command every week with Cron?
Simple question- what would a crontab entry look like for a command I want to run every week on Saturday at 8:05 AM?
igul222
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58
votes
1 answer
Running program every 2 minutes with crontab
What does
2 * * * *
means in crontab context?
I want to run my program every 2 minutes; is that what 2 * * * * means?
Juanjo Conti
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54
votes
2 answers
Difference between /etc/crontab and "crontab -e"
What is the difference between the crontab located in /etc/crontab and the crontab that can be edited using crontab -e?
jrdioko
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43
votes
14 answers
Run a cron job on the first Monday of every month?
I'd like to run a job from cron at 8.30 on the first Monday of every month. The cron Wikipedia page says
While normally the job is executed when the time/date specification fields all match
the current time and date, there is one exception:…
Max Williams
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30
votes
7 answers
How to execute shell script via crontab?
I have a notify.sh script that looks like:
notify-send "hi welcome"
My crontab notification for 2 PM:
0 14 * * * home/hacks/notify.sh
However, this doesn't work. What is the problem?
Aravind
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18
votes
2 answers
Run a cron job every 5 minutes between two times
Is there a way to specify a job that runs every 5 minutes between some start time and some end time on business days in a crontab?
Update
I think it's relevant that my start and end times are not at round hours. So, specifying 9-5 in the hour…
pythonic metaphor
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17
votes
4 answers
Is it possible to use variables in crontab -e?
Can I say:
MYPATH=/root/scripts
MYSCRIPT=doit.sh
0 1 * * * $MYPATH/$MYSCRIPT
in crontab -e?
Is it possible to use variables in crontab -e?
user19496
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16
votes
1 answer
crontab day of week vs. day of month?
I added this to /etc/crontab on a few different linux & freebsd systems:
# monthly reboot: 3rd Tuesday of every month
56 07 15-21 * 2 root /sbin/shutdown -r now
I want a reboot on the 3rd TUESDAY of every month. However, all the systems rebooted…
ane
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16
votes
2 answers
Cron runs only once instead every minute
I'm trying to run a script every minute (on a Docker container running Ubuntu 16.04).
The /etc/echo.sh simply echo the word "hi"
cat /etc/crontab
* * * * * root /etc/echo.sh > /var/log/cron.log 2>&1
/etc/init.d/cron reload
* Reloading…
Sig
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15
votes
1 answer
crontab and binaries in /usr/local/bin
I am working in Redhat and have few programs located in folder /usr/local/bin I would like to call from crontab for root user.
I thought that by putting binaries in that folder would be sufficient to call the program directly as in the…
Abruzzo Forte e Gentile
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15
votes
2 answers
Multiple crontabs for one user
is there a way to use multiple crontab files for one user? Thinking something along the lines of crontab file per project instead of crontab per user...
Any help is appreciated...
realshadow
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11
votes
1 answer
Linux - check when crontab file was last amended
How can i get the last updated date/time of the crontab file. not when cron was last run but instead when was the crontab file amended last
Marty Wallace
11
votes
2 answers
Where is my crontab file on OS X?
Moving to a new laptop I've lost my old cron setup.
I'd like to include it in my backup going forward.
Where is it located?
Thomas David Baker
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10
votes
5 answers
Bad minute in crontab?
I get the following error in my syslog:
Oct 17 13:14:03 tracker cron[873]: (*system*) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)
Oct 17 13:14:03 tracker cron[873]: Error: bad minute; while reading /etc/crontab
I don't see any bad…
David Pfeffer
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10
votes
1 answer
Cronjob runs before the scheduled time, what could be wrong?
I have below crontab scheduled for Saturday that falls between days 19-23, I' m not sure why it ran on 20th (Friday). Any guesses?
00 21 19-23 * 6
simer
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