Cron Guide and Tutorials: Automate Tasks

Cron jobs and crontabs: they sound futuristic. But to old hackers, they bring back memories of a simpler time of the Bourne shell and vi and AWK: Unix tools that aren’t much used anymore.

But while it might be true that few people still use vi, cron is more used today than it has ever been. In fact, it is the basis of a lot of cool things you do on your website without even knowing it.

What Is Cron?

According to the original writer of cron, Ken Thompson, the name comes from the Greek word chronos which means “time.” So cron is the basic scheduling program for the Unix operating system. It allows users to schedule processes to run. They can be one time things like a scheduled system shutdown. Or they can be periodic things like a nightly backup. Cron is a daemon — a background process that is always running. It keeps track of what needs to be done and when.

But the great thing about it is that you don’t need to worry about how it works; you just need to worry about how to use it.

Cron Job

A cron job is an individual command. It tells cron what command to run and when. We’ll get to the details of that in a moment.

Crontab

The crontab is a table of cron jobs — a “cron tab(le).” The crontab is just a text file. Each line in it represents a cron job. Generally, every computer system has a global crontab, which is maintained by the system administer. But every user has a their own personal crontab.

This is how most web server control panels allow users to set timed events. But this is also how CMSs like WordPress are able to work some of their magic.

Crontab Format

The crontab is filled with comment lines and cron job lines. As with most command files of Unix, lines starting with the hashtag (number, pound) symbol, “#.” (The symbol is also used to modify day-of-the-week timing functions, but this is not standard.)

Cron job lines are made up six parts: five timing parameters and one command parameter. So each cron job line is organized as follows:

Min Hour DoM Mon DoW Command

These are defined as follows:

• Min: the minute of the hour (0-59).
• Hour: the hour of the day (0-23).
• DoM: the day of the month (1-31).
• Mon: the month of the year (1-12 or Jan-Dec).
• DoW: the day of the week (0-6 or Sun-Sat).
• Command: anything you can normally run on a command line.

Timing Parameters

All the cron job parameters allow three special characters.

Special Characters

• Asterisks: in general, you will see a lot of asterisks in the timing parameters. An asterisk indicates all possible values. So if an asterisk in used for the Min parameter, the cron job will run at each minute (that is consistent with the other timing parameters).
• Commas: the timing parameters can be made up of more than a single number. A comma is used to separate discrete values. For example, a Min parameter of 3,27,51 would make the cron job run at minutes 3, 27, and 51.
• Hyphens: a hyphen is used to indicate a range of values. For example, a Min parameter of 3-51 would make the cron job run at minutes 3 through 51. Note that commas and hyphens can be used together. So a Min of 3-15,39-51 would run the command at minutes 3 through 15 and 39 through 51.

Command Parameter

The command parameter can be any command that you could enter on a command line. Note, however, that you can’t interact with it. So if it requires user input, it must be provided in the crontab. This is done by using the percent character (%). All data after the first “%” is sent to the command as its standard input. Subsequent “%” characters are interpreted as newline characters.

Examples

Here are a few simple examples:

# Run command every minute of every day
* * * * * /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt
# Run command every midnight of every day
0 0 * * * /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt
# Run command at 8:03 pm every Tuesday
3 20 * * 2 /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt
# Run command at 1:00 am on the 7th day of each month
0 1 7 * * /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt
# Run command at 6:45 pm on every Friday in August
45 18 * 8 5 /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt

And here are a few more complex examples:

# Run command every minute of the first half hour of every hour of every day
0-29 * * * * /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt
# Run command every midnight of the first day of the year
0 0 1 1 * /bin/cat > /etc/motd.txt%Happy New Year, everyone!%Hope yours is great!
# Run command at 8:03 pm on the second day of the year
3 20 2 1 * /bin/cat > /etc/motd.txt%This year sure is dragging on!
# Run command at 1:00 am and 1:00 pm on the 7th day of each month
0 1,13 7 * * /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt
# Run command at 6:45 pm on every Friday in January through April and August
45 18 * 1-4,8 5 /bin/ls -R / > /etc/FileList.txt

Variations

There are variations and extensions to the basic crontab and cron jobs that we’ve discussed.

In particular, some systems allow for a second and a year parameter. Also, one other character is sometimes available to the DoM and DoW parameters: L. It is used differently for each parameter, however. For DoM, a lone “L” means the last day of the month. For DoW, the “L” is added to the day number to indicate the last day of the month. For example, “1L” would indicate the last Monday of the month. Finally, some systems provide macros like @daily.

Crontab Program

People new to Unix often find crontab confusing because there is a crontab file and a crontab program. It is best to think of crontab as a file. The crontab program is just a simple thing that allows users to display and edit the crontab file. Unless you are a system administrator, you will normally use a web-based interface. The most important thing to remember is that the crontab program is not the cron program that we discuss below.

If you have command-line access to your machine, you can use the crontab program directly. There are two ways to use it.

Crontab Import

A crontab formatted file can be imported into a user’s or the global crontab file using the following syntax:

crontab [-u user] file

If the user is not given, the default user is assumed. If the file is not given, the program will read from the standard input.

Crontab Edit

The next command is very similar, but allows you to view, edit, or delete the current crontab file:

crontab [-u user]

In this case, the user must select one of the switches, -l, -r, or -e. The -l switch causes the program to display the current crontab file. The -r switch removes the current crontab file. Be careful with that one! And the -e switch allows you to edit the crontab file.

Using Cron

Most people will never actually edit a crontab themselves. Usually, people will use an interface for it. For example, in cPanel, cron jobs can be added to the system with a form that looks like this:

Other control panel systems offer the same features.

Learning Cron

If you are managing servers or writing CMS plugins, you may want to take a deep dive into cron. But to some extent, this will depend upon you getting into manuals and specifications. The hardest thing about cron is that different systems have created their own extensions and idiosyncrasies. But for the vast majority of your work, you will only need the base code.

Cron Tutorials

These tutorials will get you going with cron and crontab files. Some of them go into a fair amount of depth.

• Scheduling Tasks with Cron Jobs: a thorough introduction to the whole cron system from the basics to advanced subjects.
• Linux Crontab: 15 Awesome Cron Job Examples: a tutorial in a question and answer format.
• Newbie: Intro to Cron: the Unix Geeks’ basic introduction to cron with lots of examples.
• A Short Introduction To Cron Jobs: a simple introduction to cron with an emphasis on using the crontab command rather than manually editing the crontab file.
• Schedule Tasks on Linux Using Crontab: a clear introduction to cron scheduling on Linux servers.
• CronHowto: the Ubuntu documentation introduction to cron, crontab, and alternatives

Cron Manuals

On any Unix system you have, you will be able to get information on its cron implementation by using the man command:

• % man crontab # Displays the manual for the crontab command.
• % man 5 crontab # Displays the manual for the crontab file format.
• % man cron # Displays the manual for the cron daemon.

Here are the manuals online for Linux and FreeBSD:

• Linux Crontab File: the manual for the crontab file used in Linux.
• Linux Crontab Command: the manual for the Linux application for adding cron jobs to the crontab file.
• Linux Cron Daemon: the manual for the Linux cron daemon — the program that does all the work.
• FreeBSD Crontab File: the manual for the crontab file used in FreeBSD.
• FreeBSD Crontab Command: the manual for the FreeBSD application for adding cron jobs to the crontab file.
• FreeBSD Cron Daemon: the manual for the FreeBSD cron daemon — the program that does all the work.

Cron Tools

A lot of these tools will not only help you to make cron schedule things the way you want them, they will provide you with insight into how the whole system works.

• Crontab — Quick Reference: a handy reference for users already familiar with the system.
• Crontab Generator: a point and click interface that outputs a crontab line for whatever scheduled task you desire.
• Easily Create Crontab Syntax: another crontab generator, but one that is really helpful in learning to create your own crontab files by hand.
• Crontab Editor: the opposite of a generator; you enter the cron job information, and it tells you what you have scheduled.
• Standard Cron Jobs: an introduction to creating cron jobs with cPanel from SiteGround.
• Using Cron: an introduction to using cron with examples using the Plesk control panel.

Cron Alternatives

Since scheduling is such an important part of computing, there are a lot of choices with regards to software to do it. Cron is the standard, but if you have more advanced, or simply different needs, some of these alternatives may suit your purposes better.

• Anacron: a cron replacement for computers that are not always running. So it can deal with situations where the computer is not running when a task is scheduled.
• Fcron: generally a replacement for cron, but like anacron, it does not require that the system always be running.
• Hcron: a cron replacement with an improved table format, job independence, and a network orientation.
• JAMS: a commercial enterprise scheduling system.
• Jobber: a commercial product with scheduling abilities combined with client control and invoicing.
• Chronos: a distributed scheduling program designed for cloud-based systems.

Summary

Scheduling tasks is one of the most important aspects of working with computers — it’s one of the ways that they save you a lot of time. And if you are working with Linux servers, you are probably already using cron. But with a little knowledge, you can use it to greatly improve your productivity and reduce the boring and error prone parts of your job.