Crontab Basic

Cron is for scheduling tasks.

1. Basic terms

• crontab -e - (commands) maintains crontab files for individual users, with flag-e to edit a crontab file of current user)
• crontab - files used to schedule the execution of programs

2. How to add/ edit a cron task

Although there is a system wide cron file /etc/crontab. You can take a look by using cat /etc/crontab. I instinctively left it alone after seeing its content (mostly because I was scared).

Either using sudo crontab -e to edit root account crontab file or

crontab -e to edit user account crontab file.

I have intensively used Debian for a long time and find that crontab -e for normal users is enough for me.

3. A task pattern in crontab file

For system wide tasks in /etc/crontab. Notice the user-name argument.

*  *  *  *  * user-name  command to be executed

User’s one:

*  *  *  *  * command to be executed

Note: I get this guide from the file /etc/crontab

# Example of job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# |  |  |  |  |
# *  *  *  *  * user-name command to be executed

Because I rarely write one myself, I cannot afford to re-learn it every time I need one - I often just Google it.

4. Reload/ restart service after edit

sudo service cron restart

NOTE:

• sudo service cron reload also works. It is always safer to use restart because reload sometime do not exist for a service.

• More:
  • restart = stop + start
  • reload = remain running + re-read configuration file
  • So if reload does exist, it is preferable to restart because there will be no down time.
• If you want a thoroughly read, go here: The Debian Policy Manual

5. Check the service status

sudo service cron status

6. System log

A cron task often needs trouble-shooting, especially right after being set up.

Cron logs its actions via syslog, which (depending on your Linux distro) often goes to /var/log/cron or /var/log/syslog.

sudo grep CRON /var/log/syslog

7.Create your own logs

I find the system log messy (the system-wide cron tasks also logged here) and not give enough information for a specific command, I like to log it myself.

1 2 * * * /path/to/your/command >/tmp/mycommand.log 2>&1

Mine (with date added): The task is for changing my wallpaper every 20 minutes.

*/20 * * * * (/bin/date && /home/dat/Custom/nitrogenSlideShow.py) > /tmp/mycommand.log 2>&1

Note: >> is appended; > is overwritten.

8.Check if cron is running in system:

ps -ef | grep cron

Note: ps (processes status) is a command to view a selection of running processes. It gets the info from /proc.

Mine here:

root      5254     1  0 14:52 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cron -f
dat      25396 25201  0 18:18 pts/4    00:00:00 grep cron