If you've got a website that's heavy on your web server, you might want to run some processes like generating thumbnails or enriching data in the background. This way it can not interfere with the user interface. Linux has a great program for this called cron. It allows tasks to be automatically run in the background at regular intervals. You could also use it to automatically create backups, synchronize files, schedule updates, and much more. Welcome to the wonderful world of crontab.
Crontab
The crontab (cron derives from
chronos, Greek for time; tab stands for
table) command, found in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, is used to schedule commands to be executed periodically. To see what crontabs are currently running on your system, you can open a terminal and run:
sudo crontab -l
To edit the list of
cronjobs you can run:
sudo crontab -e
This wil open a the default editor (could be vi or pico, if you want you can change the default editor) to let us manipulate the crontab. If you save and exit the editor, all your cronjobs are saved into crontab. Cronjobs are written in the following format:
* * * * * /bin/execute/this/script.sh
Scheduling explained
As you can see there are 5 stars. The stars represent different date parts in the following order:
- minute (from 0 to 59)
- hour (from 0 to 23)
- day of month (from 1 to 31)
- month (from 1 to 12)
- day of week (from 0 to 6) (0=Sunday)
Execute every minute
If you leave the star, or asterisk, it means
every. Maybe that's a bit unclear. Let's use the the previous example again:
* * * * * /bin/execute/this/script.sh
They are all still asterisks! So this means execute
/bin/execute/this/script.sh:
- every minute
- of every hour
- of every day of the month
- of every month
- and every day in the week.
In short: This script is being executed every minute. Without exception.
Execute every Friday 1AM
So if we want to schedule the script to run at 1AM every Friday, we would need the following cronjob:
0 1 * * 5 /bin/execute/this/script.sh
Get it? The script is now being executed when the system clock hits:
- minute: 0
- of hour: 1
- of day of month: * (every day of month)
- of month: * (every month)
- and weekday: 5 (=Friday)
Execute on workdays 1AM
So if we want to schedule the script to Monday till Friday at 1 AM, we would need the following cronjob:
0 1 * * 1-5 /bin/execute/this/script.sh
Get it? The script is now being executed when the system clock hits:
- minute: 0
- of hour: 1
- of day of month: * (every day of month)
- of month: * (every month)
- and weekday: 1-5 (=Monday til Friday)
Execute 10 past after every hour on the 1st of every month
Here's another one, just for practicing
10 * 1 * * /bin/execute/this/script.sh
Fair enough, it takes some getting used to, but it offers great flexibility.