11 Cron Scheduling Task Examples in Linux

Crontab file consists of command per line and have six fields actually and separated either of space or tab. The beginning five fields represent time to run tasks and last field is for command.

1. Minute (hold values between 0-59)
2. Hour (hold values between 0-23)
3. Day of Month (hold values between 1-31)
4. Month of the year (hold values between 1-12 or Jan-Dec, you can use first three letters of each month’s name i.e Jan or Jun.)
5. Day of week (hold values between 0-6 or Sun-Sat, Here also you can use first three letters of each day’s name i.e Sun or Wed. )
6. Command

1. List Crontab Entries

List or manage the task with crontab command with -l option for current user.

# crontab -l

00 10 * * * /bin/ls >/ls.txt

2. Edit Crontab Entries

To edit crontab entry, use -e option as shown below. In the below example will open schedule jobs in VI editor. Make a necessary changes and quit pressing :wq keys which saves the setting automatically.

# crontab -e

3. List Scheduled Cron Jobs

To list scheduled jobs of a particular user called tecmint using option as -u (User) and -l(List).

# crontab -u tecmint -l

no crontab for tecmint

Note: Only root user have complete privileges to see other users crontab entry. Normal user can’t view it others.

4. Remove Crontab Entry

Caution: Crontab with -r parameter will remove complete scheduled jobs without confirmation from crontab. Use -i option before deleting user’s crontab.

# crontab -r

5. Prompt Before Deleting Crontab

crontab with -i option will prompt you confirmation from user before deleting user’s crontab.

# crontab -i -r

crontab: really delete root's crontab?

6. Allowed special character (*, -, /, ?, #)

1. Asterik(*) – Match all values in the field or any possible value.
2. Hyphen(-) – To define range.
3. Slash (/) – 1st field /10 meaning every ten minute or increment of range.
4. Comma (,) – To separate items.

7. System Wide Cron Schedule

System administrator can use predefine cron directory as shown below.

1. /etc/cron.d
2. /etc/cron.daily
3. /etc/cron.hourly
4. /etc/cron.monthly
5. /etc/cron.weekly

8. Schedule a Jobs for Specific Time

The below jobs delete empty files and directory from /tmp at 12:30 am daily. You need to mention user name to perform crontab command. In below example root user is performingcron job.

# crontab -e

30 0 * * *   root   find /tmp -type f -empty -delete

9. Special Strings for Common Schedule

Strings	Meanings
@reboot	Command will run when the system reboot.
@daily	Once per day or may use @midnight.
@weekly	Once per week.
@yearly	Once per year. we can use @annually keyword also.
@daily	Once per day.

Need to replace five fields of cron command with keyword if you want to use the same.

10. Multiple Commands with Double amper-sand(&&)

In below example command1 and command2 run daily.

# crontab -e

@daily <command1> && <command2>

11. Disable Email Notification.

By default cron send mail to user account executing cronjob. If you want to disable it add your cron job similar to below example. Using >/dev/null 2>&1 option at the end of the file will redirect all the output of the cron results under /dev/null.

[root@tecmint ~]# crontab -e
* * * * * >/dev/null 2>&1