Scheduling Tools
Most process automation is facilitated by one or more scheduling tools that determine when each process should run. All Unix distributions provide at least two such tools: at and cron. You can schedule one-time jobs that occur some time in the future with at, while cron schedules recurring jobs. Knowing how to use these two utilities enables you to use the other automation mechanisms discussed in this chapter.
One-Time Scheduling with at
When you want to schedule a command to execute once sometime in the future, whether it is 5 minutes or 6 months from now, at is the command you should use. at has a very simple and flexible syntax, allowing you to run multiple commands and specify the scheduled date and time in plain English. ...
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