Cron

Cron is an automation framework.

Not all modern implementations use a crond(8) binary, but all use crontab(1) as the user interface.

Installation

Arch Linux offers cronie and fcron packages but promotes timers instead.

Fedora offers cronie but promotes timers instead. (Unsurprising, as both are Red Hat initiatives.)

Debian offers a custom distribution of Vixie cron, with plans to phase it out for cronie.

Usage

Cronie

Busybox Crond

The !BusyBox implementation of Cron (crond(8)) recommends a layer of indirection through named directories. The default configuration runs these tasks:

# min   hour    day     month   weekday command
*/15    *       *       *       *       run-parts /etc/periodic/15min
0       *       *       *       *       run-parts /etc/periodic/hourly
0       2       *       *       *       run-parts /etc/periodic/daily
0       3       *       *       6       run-parts /etc/periodic/weekly
0       5       1       *       *       run-parts /etc/periodic/monthly

Any scripts in /etc/periodic/hourly will be run on the hourly mark every hour. This is considered preferable to installing a new cronjob.

See also

crond(8)

crontab(1)

crontab(5)

crontab guru, a crontab helper

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