Scheduling Recurring Tasks with cron
Unix provides a service called cron
that runs programs repeatedly on a fixed schedule. Most experienced administrators consider cron
to be vital to the system because it can perform automatic system maintenance. For example, cron
runs log file rotation utilities. You should know about cron
not only in the interest of knowing about everything that runs on your system, but also because it is just plain useful.
You can run any program you like with cron
, choosing the times that suit you. A program running through cron
is called a cron
job. To install a cron
job, you need to create an entry line in your crontab file, usually with the crontab
command. Here is a typical crontab file entry that runs a command daily ...
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