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

Rsync (Remote Sync): 10 Practical Examples of Rsync Command in Linux

Some advantages and features of Rsync command

1. It efficiently copies and sync files to or from a remote system.
2. Supports copying links, devices, owners, groups and permissions.
3. It’s faster than scp (Secure Copy) because rsync uses remote-update protocol which allows to transfer just the differences between two sets of files. First time, it copies the whole content of a file or a directory from source to destination but from next time, it copies only the changed blocks and bytes to the destination.
4. Rsync consumes less bandwidth as it uses compression and decompression method while sending and receiving data both ends.

Basic syntax of rsync command

# rsync options source destination

Some common options used with rsync commands

1. -v : verbose
2. -r : copies data recursively (but don’t preserve timestamps and permission whiletransferring data
3. -a : archive mode, archive mode allows copying files recursively and it also preservessymbolic links, file permissions, user & group ownerships and timestamps
4. -z : compress file data
5. -h : human-readable, output numbers in a human-readable format

Install rsync in your Linux machine

We can install rsync package with the help of following command.

# yum install rsync (On Red Hat based systems)
# apt-get install rsync (On Debian based systems)

1. Copy/Sync Files and Directory Locally

Copy/Sync a File on a Local Computer

This following command will sync a single file on a local machine from one location to another location. Here in this example, a file name backup.tar needs to be copied or synced to/tmp/backups/ folder.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -zvh backup.tar /tmp/backups/

created directory /tmp/backups

backup.tar

sent 14.71M bytes  received 31 bytes  3.27M bytes/sec

total size is 16.18M  speedup is 1.10

In above example, you can see that if the destination is not already exists rsync will create a directory automatically for destination.

Copy/Sync a Directory on Local Computer

The following command will transfer or sync all the files of from one directory to a different directory in the same machine. Here in this example, /root/rpmpkgs contains some rpm package files and you want that directory to be copied inside /tmp/backups/ folder.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avzh /root/rpmpkgs /tmp/backups/

sending incremental file list

rpmpkgs/

rpmpkgs/httpd-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

rpmpkgs/mod_ssl-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

rpmpkgs/nagios-3.5.0.tar.gz

rpmpkgs/nagios-plugins-1.4.16.tar.gz

sent 4.99M bytes  received 92 bytes  3.33M bytes/sec

total size is 4.99M  speedup is 1.00

2. Copy/Sync Files and Directory to or From a Server

Copy a Directory from Local Server to a Remote Server

This command will sync a directory from a local machine to a remote machine. For example: There is a folder in your local computer “rpmpkgs” which contains some RPM packages and you want that local directory’s content send to a remote server, you can use following command.

[root@tecmint]$ rsync -avz rpmpkgs/ root@192.168.0.101:/home/

root@192.168.0.101's password:

sending incremental file list

./

httpd-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

mod_ssl-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

nagios-3.5.0.tar.gz

nagios-plugins-1.4.16.tar.gz

sent 4993369 bytes  received 91 bytes  399476.80 bytes/sec

total size is 4991313  speedup is 1.00

Copy/Sync a Remote Directory to a Local Machine

This command will help you sync a remote directory to a local directory. Here in this example, a directory /home/tarunika/rpmpkgs which is on a remote server is being copied in your local computer in /tmp/myrpms.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avzh root@192.168.0.100:/home/tarunika/rpmpkgs /tmp/myrpms

root@192.168.0.100's password:

receiving incremental file list

created directory /tmp/myrpms

rpmpkgs/

rpmpkgs/httpd-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

rpmpkgs/mod_ssl-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

rpmpkgs/nagios-3.5.0.tar.gz

rpmpkgs/nagios-plugins-1.4.16.tar.gz

sent 91 bytes  received 4.99M bytes  322.16K bytes/sec

total size is 4.99M  speedup is 1.00

3. Rsync Over SSH

With rsync, we can use SSH (Secure Shell) for data transfer, using SSH protocol while transferring our data you can be ensured that your data is being transferred in a secured connection with encryption so that nobody can read your data while it is being transferredover the wire on the internet.

Also when we use rsync we need to provide the user/root password to accomplish that particular task, so using SSH option will send your logins in an encrypted manner so that yourpassword will be safe.

Copy a File from a Remote Server to a Local Server with SSH

To specify a protocol with rsync you need to give “-e” option with protocol name you want to use. Here in this example, We will be using “ssh” with “-e” option and perform data transfer.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avzhe ssh root@192.168.0.100:/root/install.log /tmp/

root@192.168.0.100's password:

receiving incremental file list

install.log

sent 30 bytes  received 8.12K bytes  1.48K bytes/sec

total size is 30.74K  speedup is 3.77

Copy a File from a Local Server to a Remote Server with SSH

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avzhe ssh backup.tar root@192.168.0.100:/backups/

root@192.168.0.100's password:

sending incremental file list

backup.tar

sent 14.71M bytes  received 31 bytes  1.28M bytes/sec

total size is 16.18M  speedup is 1.10

4. Show Progress While Transferring Data with rsync

To show the progress while transferring the data from one machine to a different machine, we can use ‘–progress’ option for it. It displays the files and the time remaining to complete the transfer.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avzhe ssh --progress /home/rpmpkgs root@192.168.0.100:/root/rpmpkgs

root@192.168.0.100's password:

sending incremental file list

created directory /root/rpmpkgs

rpmpkgs/

rpmpkgs/httpd-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

           1.02M 100%        2.72MB/s        0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=3/5)

rpmpkgs/mod_ssl-2.2.3-82.el5.centos.i386.rpm

          99.04K 100%  241.19kB/s        0:00:00 (xfer#2, to-check=2/5)

rpmpkgs/nagios-3.5.0.tar.gz

           1.79M 100%        1.56MB/s        0:00:01 (xfer#3, to-check=1/5)

rpmpkgs/nagios-plugins-1.4.16.tar.gz

           2.09M 100%        1.47MB/s        0:00:01 (xfer#4, to-check=0/5)

sent 4.99M bytes  received 92 bytes  475.56K bytes/sec

total size is 4.99M  speedup is 1.00

5. Use of –include and –exclude Options

These two options allows us to include and exclude files by specifying parameters with these option helps us to specify those files or directories which you want to include in your sync and exclude files and folders with you don’t want to be transferred.

Here in this example, rsync command will include those files and directory only which starts with ‘R’ and exclude all other files and directory.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avze ssh --include 'R*' --exclude '*' root@192.168.0.101:/var/lib/rpm/ /root/rpm

root@192.168.0.101's password:

receiving incremental file list

created directory /root/rpm

./

Requirename

Requireversion

sent 67 bytes  received 167289 bytes  7438.04 bytes/sec

total size is 434176  speedup is 2.59

6. Use of –delete Option

If a file or directory not exist at the source, but already exists at the destination, you might want to delete that existing file/directory at the target while syncing .

We can use ‘–delete‘ option to delete files that are not there in source directory.

Source and target are in sync. Now creating new file test.txt at the target.

[root@tecmint]# touch test.txt
[root@tecmint]# rsync -avz --delete root@192.168.0.100:/var/lib/rpm/ .
Password:
receiving file list ... done
deleting test.txt
./
sent 26 bytes  received 390 bytes  48.94 bytes/sec
total size is 45305958  speedup is 108908.55

Target has the new file called test.txt, when synchronize with the source with ‘–delete‘ option, it removed the file test.txt.

7. Set the Max Size of Files to be Transferred

You can specify the Max file size to be transferred or sync. You can do it with “–max-size” option. Here in this example, Max file size is 200k, so this command will transfer only those files which are equal or smaller than 200k.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -avzhe ssh --max-size='200k' /var/lib/rpm/ root@192.168.0.100:/root/tmprpm

root@192.168.0.100's password:

sending incremental file list

created directory /root/tmprpm

./

Conflictname

Group

Installtid

Name

Provideversion

Pubkeys

Requireversion

Sha1header

Sigmd5

Triggername

__db.001

sent 189.79K bytes  received 224 bytes  13.10K bytes/sec

total size is 38.08M  speedup is 200.43

8. Automatically Delete source Files after successful Transfer

Now, suppose you have a main web server and a data backup server, you created a daily backup and synced it with your backup server, now you don’t want to keep that local copy of backup in your web server.

So, will you wait for transfer to complete and then delete those local backup file manually? Of Course NO. This automatic deletion can be done using ‘–remove-source-files‘ option.

[root@tecmint]# rsync --remove-source-files -zvh backup.tar /tmp/backups/

backup.tar

sent 14.71M bytes  received 31 bytes  4.20M bytes/sec

total size is 16.18M  speedup is 1.10

[root@tecmint]# ll backup.tar

ls: backup.tar: No such file or directory

9. Do a Dry Run with rsync

If you are a newbie and using rsync and don’t know what exactly your command going do. Rsync could really mess up the things in your destination folder and then doing an undo can be a tedious job.

Use of this option will not make any changes only do a dry run of the command and shows the output of the command, if the output shows exactly same you want to do then you can remove ‘–dry-run‘ option from your command and run on the terminal.

root@tecmint]# rsync --dry-run --remove-source-files -zvh backup.tar /tmp/backups/

backup.tar

sent 35 bytes  received 15 bytes  100.00 bytes/sec

total size is 16.18M  speedup is 323584.00 (DRY RUN)

10. Set Bandwidth Limit and Transfer File

You can set the bandwidth limit while transferring data from one machine to another machine with the the help of ‘–bwlimit‘ option. This options helps us to limit I/O bandwidth.

[root@tecmint]# rsync --bwlimit=100 -avzhe ssh  /var/lib/rpm/  root@192.168.0.100:/root/tmprpm/
root@192.168.0.100's password:
sending incremental file list
sent 324 bytes  received 12 bytes  61.09 bytes/sec
total size is 38.08M  speedup is 113347.05

Also, by default rsync syncs changed blocks and bytes only, if you want explicitly want to sync whole file then you use ‘-W‘ option with it.

[root@tecmint]# rsync -zvhW backup.tar /tmp/backups/backup.tar
backup.tar
sent 14.71M bytes  received 31 bytes  3.27M bytes/sec
total size is 16.18M  speedup is 1.10

How To Sync Two Apache Web Servers

Let’s proceed with setting up rsync to create a mirror of your web server. Here, I’ll be using two servers.

Main Server

1. IP Address: 192.168.0.100
2. Hostname: webserver.example.com

Backup Server

1. IP Address: 192.168.0.101
2. Hostname: backup.example.com

Step 1: Install Rsync Tool

Here in this case web server data of webserver.example.com will be mirrored onbackup.example.com. And to do so first, we need to install Rsync on both the server with the help of following command.

[root@tecmint]# yum install rsync        [On Red Hat based systems]
[root@tecmint]# apt-get install rsync    [On Debian based systems]

Step 2: Create a User to run Rsync

We can setup rsync with root user, but for security reasons, you can create an unprivileged user on main webserver i.e webserver.example.com to run rsync.

[root@tecmint]# useradd tecmint
[root@tecmint]# passwd tecmint

Here I have created a user “tecmint” and assigned a password to user.

Step 3: Test Rsync Setup

It’s time to test your rsync setup on your backup server (i.e. backup.example.com) and to do so, please type following command.

[root@backup www]# rsync -avzhe ssh tecmint@webserver.example.com:/var/www/ /var/www

Sample Output

tecmint@webserver.example.com's password:

receiving incremental file list
sent 128 bytes  received 32.67K bytes  5.96K bytes/sec
total size is 12.78M  speedup is 389.70

You can see that your rsync is now working absolutely fine and syncing data. I have used “/var/www” to transfer; you can change the folder location according to your needs.

Step 4: Automate Sync with SSH Passwordless Login

Now, we are done with rsync setups and now its time to setup a cron for rsync. As we are going to use rsync with SSH protocol, ssh will be asking for authentication and if we won’t provide a password to cron it will not work. In order to work cron smoothly, we need to setuppasswordless ssh logins for rsync.

Here in this example, I am doing it as root to preserve file ownerships as well, you can do it for alternative users too.

First, we’ll generate a public and private key with following commands on backups server (i.e. backup.example.com).

[root@backup]# ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048

When you enter this command, please don’t provide passphrase and click enter for Empty passphrase so that rsync cron will not need any password for syncing data.

Sample Output

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
9a:33:a9:5d:f4:e1:41:26:57:d0:9a:68:5b:37:9c:23 root@backup.exmple.com
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|          .o.    |
|           ..    |
|        ..++ .   |
|        o=E *    |
|       .Sooo o   |
|       =.o o     |
|      * . o      |
|     o +         |
|    . .          |
+-----------------+

Now, our Public and Private key has been generated and we will have to share it with main server so that main web server will recognize this backup machine and will allow it to login without asking any password while syncing data.

[root@backup html]# ssh-copy-id -i /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@webserver.example.com

Now try logging into the machine, with “ssh ‘root@webserver.example.com‘”, and check in.ssh/authorized_keys.

[root@backup html]# root@webserver.example.com

Now, we are done with sharing keys. To know more in-depth about SSH password less login, you can read our article on it.

1. SSH Passwordless Login in in 5 Easy Steps

Step 5: Schedule Cron To Automate Sync

Let’s setup a cron for this. To setup a cron, please open crontab file with the following command.

[root@backup ~]# crontab –e

It will open up /etc/crontab file to edit with your default editor. Here In this example, I am writing a cron to run it every 5 minutes to sync the data.

*/5        *        *        *        *   rsync -avzhe ssh root@webserver.example.com:/var/www/ /var/www/

The above cron and rsync command simply syncing “/var/www/” from the main web serverto a backup server in every 5 minutes. You can change the time and folder location configuration according to your needs. To be more creative and customize with Rsync andCron command, you can check out our more detailed articles at: