Scribd
Upload
31 views

Setting Up Cron Jobs in Unix and Solaris

Cron jobs allow tasks to be automatically run in the background at regular intervals by the cron daemon in Unix and Solaris systems. The crontab file specifies the schedule for cron jobs, including the commands to run and the day, date, and time. This document covers crontab restrictions, commands, syntax, examples, environment, and disabling email notifications. It also discusses the at command for scheduling single system events once unlike crontab which can schedule events repetitively.

Uploaded by

prasanna_erudite
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
31 views

Setting Up Cron Jobs in Unix and Solaris

Cron jobs allow tasks to be automatically run in the background at regular intervals by the cron daemon in Unix and Solaris systems. The crontab file specifies the schedule for cron jobs, including the commands to run and the day, date, and time. This document covers crontab restrictions, commands, syntax, examples, environment, and disabling email notifications. It also discusses the at command for scheduling single system events once unlike crontab which can schedule events repetitively.

Uploaded by

prasanna_erudite
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Setting up cron jobs in Unix and Solaris

cron is a unix, solaris utility that allows tasks to be automatically run in the background at
regular intervals by the cron daemon. These tasks are often termed as cron jobs in unix , solaris. 
Crontab (CRON TABle) is a file which contains the schedule of cron entries to be run and at
specified times.

This document covers following aspects of Unix cron jobs


1. Crontab Restrictions
2. Crontab Commands
3. Crontab file – syntax
4. Crontab Example
5. Crontab Environment
6. Disable Email
7. Generate log file for crontab activity

1. Crontab Restrictions
You can execute crontab if your name appears in the file /usr/lib/cron/cron.allow. If that file does
not exist, you can use
crontab if your name does not appear in the file /usr/lib/cron/cron.deny.
If only cron.deny exists and is empty, all users can use crontab. If neither file exists, only the root
user can use crontab. The allow/deny files consist of one user name per line.

2. Crontab Commands

export EDITOR=vi ;to specify a editor to open crontab file.

crontab -e    Edit your crontab file, or create one if it doesn’t already exist.
crontab -l      Display your crontab file.
crontab -r      Remove your crontab file.
crontab -v      Display the last time you edited your crontab file. (This option is only available on
a few systems.)

3. Crontab file
Crontab syntax :
A crontab file has five fields for specifying day , date and time followed by the command to be
run at that interval.

*     *   *  *   *  command to be executed


-     -    -   -  -
|     |     |   |    |
|     |     |   |    +----- day of week (0 - 6)
(Sunday=0)
|     |     |   +------- month (1 - 12)
|     |     +--------- day of month (1 - 31)
|     +----------- hour (0 - 23)
+------------- min (0 - 59)
* in the value field above means all legal values as in braces for that column.
The value column can have a * or a list of elements separated by commas. An element is either a
number in the ranges shown above or two numbers in the range separated by a hyphen (meaning
an inclusive range).
Notes
A. ) Repeat pattern like /2 for every 2 minutes or /10 for every 10 minutes is not supported by all
operating systems. If you try to use it and crontab complains it is probably not supported.

B.) The specification of days can be made in two fields: month day and weekday. If both are
specified in an entry, they are cumulative meaning both of the entries will get executed .

4. Crontab Example
A line in crontab file like below removes the tmp files from /home/someuser/tmp each day at
6:30 PM.

30     18     *     *     *         rm /home/someuser/tmp/*

Changing the parameter values as below will cause this command to run at different time
schedule below :

day/mont Execution time


min hour month day/week
h
– 00:30 Hrs  on 1st of Jan, June & Dec.
30 0 1 1,6,12 *
–8.00 PM every weekday (Mon-Fri) only in Oct.
0 20 * 10 1-5
– midnight on 1st ,10th & 15th of month
0 0 1,10,15 * *
– At 12.05,12.10 every Monday & on 10th of
5,10 0 10 * 1
every month
:

Note : If you inadvertently enter the crontab command with no argument(s), do not attempt to
get out with Control-d. This removes all entries in your crontab file. Instead, exit with Control-c.

The at command

The at command schedules a single system event only once, unlike the crontab command,
which can schedule multiple system events repetitively at specified periods. The at command
enables users to create, display, and remove their own at jobs.

To schedule at jobs, type at followed by the time. After you type this, a prompt <at> is
displayed. Specify the command or script that has to execute at the specified time. The time is
mentioned in minutes, hours, days, and months.
The following example shows how to remove the files from the home directory of user Jency at
9.55 p.m. on August 2.

$ at 9:55PM
at> rm /export/home/jency
at> rm /albert
at> mkdir / albert1
at> <EOT>
commands will be executed using /sbin/sh
job 996807300.a at Thu Aug 2 21:55:00 2001
$

NOTE. Type Ctrl+C to exit the at prompt.

You might also like