Cron and crontab

Scheduling stuff

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cron
• Cron searches /var/spool/cron for crontab files which are
named after accounts in /etc/passwd;
• crontabs found are loaded into memory.
• Cron also searches for /etc/crontab and the files in the
/etc/cron.d/ directory, which are in a different format.
• Cron then wakes up every minute, examining all stored crontabs,
checking each command to see if it should be run in the current
minute.

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Crontab

The command to create/edit, list, and remove cron jobs is crontab.

crontab [ -u user ] file
crontab [ -u user ] { -l | -r | -e }

We’ll talk about all these options throughout these slides

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description
• crontab is the program used to install, deinstall or list the tables
used to drive the cron daemon in Vixie Cron.
• Each user can have their own crontab,
• Crontab files in /var, but cannot be edited directly.
• To view your cron jobs (the flag is the letter ‘l’):

crontab -l

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description
• If the -u option is given, it specifies the name of the user whose
crontab is to be tweaked.
• If this option is not given, crontab examines "your" crontab, i.e.,
the crontab of the person executing the command.
• The command crontab file is used to install a new crontab
from some named file
• or standard input if the pseudo-filename '-' is given.

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Updating a cron job
• cron checks each minute to see if its spool directory's modtime (or
the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed,
• if it has, cron will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload
those which have changed.
• Thus cron need not be restarted whenever a crontab file is modfied.
• Note that the crontab command updates the modtime of the spool
directory whenever it changes a crontab.

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editing
• To create/modify the cron jobs of the user as
that you are currently logged in:
To see the default editor on your system:

$ echo $EDITOR
crontab –e /usr/bin/vim
• You will get the default editor if one is set.
Otherwise will get an option.
To set the default editor on your system:

export VISUAL="/usr/bin/nano"
crontab -u exampleuser -e export EDITOR="$VISUAL"
• let's you create/modify the cron jobs
of exampleuser.

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editing
• To delete all cron jobs of the user as that you're currently logged in:

crontab –r

• To delete all cron jobs of exampleuser:

crontab -u exampleuser –r

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Text files
• If you have written your cron jobs to a text file, you can use the text
file to create the cron jobs.
• For example, let's assume you have created the text
file /tmp/my_cron_jobs.txt with the following contents:

30 00 * * * /path/to/script
• You can create a cron job from that file as follows:
crontab /tmp/my_cron_jobs.txt
this will overwrite all previously created cron jobs

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Cron table format
<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

* * * * * Command_to_execute
- - - - - There is a space between each item
|||||
| | | | +-- Day of week (0-7) (Sunday=0 or 7) or Sun, Mon, Tue,...
| | | +---- Month (1-12) or Jan, Feb,... case doesn't matter
| | +------ Day of month (1-31)
| +-------- Hour (0-23)
+---------- Minute (0-59)

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Cron table format
• The asterisk (*) operator specifies all possible values for a field. e.g. every
hour or every day.
• The comma (,) operator specifies a list of values, for example: "1,3,4,7,8".
• The dash (-) operator specifies a range of values, for example: "1-6", which
is equivalent to "1,2,3,4,5,6".
• The slash (/) operator, can be used to skip a given number of values.
• For example, "*/3" in the hour time field is equivalent to "0,3,6,9,12,15,18,21";
• "*" specifies 'every hour’
• but the "/3" means that only the first, fourth, seventh...and such values given by "*"
are used.
• Or “add 3 to previous value”

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dates
• The day of a command's execution can be specified by two fields: day
of month, and day of week.
• If both fields are restricted (i.e., aren't *), the command will be run
when either field matches the current time.
• For example, 30 4 1,15 * 5 would cause a command to be run at
4:30h on the 1st and 15th of each month, plus every Friday.

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Ranges
• You can use ranges to define cron jobs:
• Examples:
1,2,5,9
means every first, second, fifth, and ninth (minute, hour, month, ...).
0-4,8-12
• means all (minutes, hours, months,...) from 0 to 4 and from 8 to 12.

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Ranges
*/5
• means every fifth (minute, hour, month, ...).
1-9/2
• is the same as 1,3,5,7,9.
1,7,25,47 */2 * * * command
• means: run command every second hour in the first, seventh, 25th,
and 47th minute.
<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Ranges
• Ranges or lists of names are not allowed if you are using names
instead of numbers for months and days
• e.g., Mon-Wed is not valid

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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shortcuts
• Instead of the first five fields, one of eight special strings may appear:

string meaning
------ -------
@reboot Run once, at startup.
@yearly Run once a year, "0 0 1 1 *".
@annually (same as @yearly)
@monthly Run once a month, "0 0 1 * *".
@weekly Run once a week, "0 0 * * 0".
@daily Run once a day, "0 0 * * *".
@midnight (same as @daily)
@hourly Run once an hour, "0 * * * *".

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Variables in crontabs
• You can also use name=value pairs in a crontab to define variables
for the cron jobs:
# use /bin/sh to run commands, instead of the default /bin/bash
SHELL=/bin/sh
# mail any output to exampleuser, no matter whose crontab this is
MAILTO=exampleuser
# set the PATH variable to make sure all commands in the crontab are found
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
* * * * * my_command
unless you set a PATH variable in a crontab, always use full paths in
the crontab to make sure commands are found and can be executed.
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scripts
• CGI scripts are executable by default, but other scripts are not. They
may need to run through a parser.
• Must put the path to the parser before the path of the script.
1* * * * * /usr/bin/php [path to php script]

• To find where an interpreter lives use the which command:

1which php

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Crontab output
• Cron will email to the user all output of the commands it runs, to
silence this, redirect the output to a log file or to /dev/null.
• If you do this you will not see the output of your script
• For most regularly running scripts this is fine; there is no output, just tasks

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 Crontab output The short answer is “you can’t without some effort”

• If you do want to see the output of a script must redirect it.

• First find out which terminal you’re logged in on using the tty command
(every ssh login is assigned a terminal):
barr@Comp390-WG1:~$ tty
/dev/pts/0 This is the “terminal” (or device) that you’re logged into

• Now redirect your script output to this device:

* * * * * /home/barr/bin/hello.sh > /dev/pts/0

• Problem: every time you log in you could get a different terminal

Other methods: set up email to send it to yourself; use DISPLAY if you have a GUI environment; etc. 20
Example 1
• To run /usr/bin/sample.sh at 12.59 every day and supress the output
59 12 * * * /home/simon /bin/sample.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
Redirect the stdout of cron to /dev/null 2> means redirect stderr

&1 means redirect stderr to the

same place as stream 1, e.g., the
same place as stdout.

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 1 (saving output in a file)
• To run /usr/bin/sample.sh at 12.59 every day and supress the output
59 12 * * * /home/simon /bin/sample.sh >> /var/log/cron.log
>> means append
Redirects the stdout of cron to the
file cron.log in the directory /var/log

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 2
• When does this run?
0 21 * * * sample.sh 1>/dev/null 2>&1

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 2
• To run sample.sh everyday at 9pm (21:00)
0 21 * * * sample.sh 1>/dev/null 2>&1

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 3
• When does this run?
0 1 * * 2-7 sample.sh 1>/dev/null 2>&1

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 3
• To run sample.sh every Tuesday to Saturday at 1am (01:00)
0 1 * * 2-7 sample.sh 1>/dev/null 2>&1

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 4
• When does this run?
30 07,09,13,15 * * * sample.sh

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 4
• To run sample.sh at 07:30, 09:30 13:30 and 15:30
30 07,09,13,15 * * * sample.sh

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 5
• When does this execute

* * * * * /usr/local/ispconfig/server/server.sh > /dev/null 2>>

/var/log/ispconfig/cron.log

Where does the output go?

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 5
• execute /usr/local/ispconfig/server/server.sh > /dev/null 2>>
/var/log/ispconfig/cron.log once per minute.

* * * * * /usr/local/ispconfig/server/server.sh > /dev/null 2>>

/var/log/ispconfig/cron.log
Output is discared,
error stream is appended into
the cron.log file

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 6
• When does this script execute?

30 00 * * * /usr/local/ispconfig/server/cron_daily.sh >
/dev/null 2>> /var/log/ispconfig/cron.log

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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Example 6
• execute /usr/local/ispconfig/server/cron_daily.sh > /dev/null 2>>
/var/log/ispconfig/cron.log once per day at 00:30h.

30 00 * * * /usr/local/ispconfig/server/cron_daily.sh >
/dev/null 2>> /var/log/ispconfig/cron.log

<minute> <hour> <day of month> <month> <day of week> <command>

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