How to Set up a Crontab File on Linux
Method 1 of 2:
Setting up the File
- Using your favourite editor, create a cron file with a line for each job you wish to schedule, in the format: m h d m w command
- m minute
- h hour
- d day of month
- m month 1-12
- w weekday 0-7, Sun,Mon, etc (Sunday = 0 = 7) It is easy to remember if you think of the way one would say a date: Wednesday, July 29, at 10:30, then reverse the order.
- Load your file into crontab: crontab yourfile
Method 2 of 2:
Trying an Example
- Create a file testCron.txt containing the following lines:
- # do this every 10 minutes
- */10 * * * * date >> ~/testCron.log
- Load it into cron: crontab testCron.txt
- Wait 30 minutes, check testCron.log, if it works it will update your file with a time stamp 3 times.
- Remove the crontab so that it does not run forever: crontab -r
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