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Cron Jobs

5 min read Quiz at the end

crontab -e schedules recurring tasks with cron syntax. Format: minute hour day month weekday command. Always use full paths in cron commands. Redirect output to a log file to capture errors from jobs.

Scheduling with Cron

crontab -e    # edit your cron jobs
crontab -l    # list cron jobs

# Format: minute hour day month weekday command
# * means "every"

# Every day at 2:30 AM
30 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh

# Every Monday at midnight
0 0 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/weekly.sh

# Every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/ping_check.sh

# Redirect output
30 2 * * * /backup.sh >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1

← SCP and rsync Next: systemd Services →

Topic Quiz · 5 questions

Test your understanding before moving on

1. What does cron do?

💡 cron is a time-based job scheduler that runs commands at specified intervals.

2. How do you edit your crontab?

💡 crontab -e opens your personal crontab for editing.

3. In cron "* * * * *" means:

💡 Five asterisks means every minute of every hour of every day.

4. What does "0 2 * * *" mean?

💡 minute=0, hour=2, day=*, month=*, weekday=* → runs at 2:00 AM every day.

5. Where are system-wide cron jobs?

💡 /etc/crontab and the files in /etc/cron.d/ define system-wide cron jobs.

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Cron Jobs

Scheduling with Cron

Test your understanding before moving on