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Automating Processes with cron and crontab

Prerequisites

  • A machine running Rocky Linux
  • Some comfort with modifying configuration files from the command-line using your favorite editor (vi is used here)

Assumptions

  • Basic knowledge of bash, python, or other scripting/programming tools, and the desire to have a script run automatically
  • That you are either running as the root user or have switched to root with sudo -s
    (You can run certain scripts in your own directories as your own user. In this case, switching to root is not necessary.)
  • We assume that you're pretty cool.

Introduction

Linux provides the cron system, a time-based job scheduler, for automating processes. It's simple and yet quite powerful. Want a script or program to run every day at 5 PM? This is where you set that up.

The crontab is essentially a list where users add their own automated tasks and jobs, and it has a number of options that can simplify things even further. This document will explore a number of these. It's a good refresher for those with some experience, new users add the cron system to their repertoire.

Starting Easy - The cron Dot Directories

Built into every Linux system including Rock Linux, for many versions now, the cron "dot" files help to automate processes quickly. These show up as directories that the cron system calls based on their naming conventions.

In order to make something run during these auto-defined times, all you need to do is to copy your script file into the directory in question, and make sure it is executable. Here are the directories, and the times that they will run:

  • /etc/cron.hourly/ - Scripts placed here will run at 1 minute past the hour, every hour of every day.
  • /etc/cron.daily - Scripts placed here will run at 4:02 AM every day.
  • /etc/cron.weekly - Scripts placed here will run at 4:22 AM on Sunday every week.
  • /etc/cron.monthly - Scripts placed here will run at 4:42 AM on the first day of the month, every month.

So, provided you're alright with just letting the system auto-run your scripts at one of these pre-determined times, then it makes it very easy to automate tasks.

Create Your Own cron

Of course, if the automated times don't work well for you for whatever reason, then you can create your own. In this example, we are assuming you are doing this as root. see Assumptions To do this, type the following:

crontab -e

This will pull up root user's crontab as it exists at this moment in your chosen editor, and may look something like this. Go ahead and read through this commented version, as it contains descriptions of each field that we will be using next:

# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
# 
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
# 
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').
# 
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# daemon's notion of time and timezones.
# 
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
# cron
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
# 
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
# 
# m h  dom mon dow   command

Notice that this particular crontab file has some of its own documentation built-in. That isn't always the case. When modifying a crontab on a container or minimalist operating system, the crontab will be an empty file, unless an entry has already been placed in it.

Let's assume that we have a backup script that we want to run at 10 PM at night. The crontab uses a 24 hour clock, so this would be 22:00. Let's assume that the backup script is called "backup" and that it is currently in the /usr/local/sbin directory.

Note: Remember that this script needs to also be executable (chmod +x) in order for the cron to run it. To add the job, we would:

crontab -e

"crontab" stands for "cron table" and the format of the file is, in fact, a loose table layout. Now that we are in the crontab, go to the bottom of the file and add your new entry. If you are using vi as your default system editor, then this is done with the following keys:

Shift : $

Now that you are at the bottom of the file, insert a line and type a brief comment to describe what is going on with your entry. This is done by adding a "#" to the beginning of the line:

# Backing up the system every night at 10PM

Now hit enter. You should still be in the insert mode, so the next step is to add your entry. As shown in our empty commented crontab (above) this is m for minutes, h for hours, dom for day of month, mon for month, and dow for day of week.

To run our backup script every day at 10:00, the entry would look like this:

00 22 * * * /usr/local/sbin/backup

This says run the script at 10 PM, every day of the month, every month, and every day of the week. Obviously, this is a pretty simple example and things can get quite complicated when you need specifics.

The @options for crontab

As noted in the Starting Easy portion of this document above, scripts in the cron dot directories are run at very specific times. @options offer the ability to use more natural timing. The @options consist of:

  • @hourly runs the script every hour of every day at 0 minutes past the hour.
  • @daily runs the script every day at midnight.
  • @weekly runs the script every week at midnight on Sunday.
  • @monthly runs the script every month at midnight on the first day of the month.
  • @yearly runs the script every year at midnight on the first day of January.
  • @reboot runs the script on system startup only.

For our backup script example, if we used use the @daily option to run the backup script at midnight, the entry would look like this:

@daily /usr/local/sbin/backup

More Complex Options

So far, everything we have talked about has had pretty simple options, but what about the more complex task timings? Let's say that you want to run your backup script every 10 minutes during the day (probably not a very practical thing to do, but hey, this is an example!). To do this you would write:

*/10 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/backup

What if you wanted to run the backup every 10 minutes, but only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday?:

*/10 * 1,3,5 * * /usr/local/sbin/backup

What about every 10 minutes every day except Saturday and Sunday?:

*/10 * 1-5 * * /usr/local/sbin/backup

In the table, the commas let you specify individual entries within a field, while the dash lets you specify a range of values within a field. This can happen in any of the fields, and on multiple fields at the same time. As you can see, things can get pretty complicated.

When determining when to run a script, you need to take time and plan it out, particularly if the criteria are complex.

Conclusions

The cron/crontab system is a very powerful tool for the Rocky Linux desktop user or systems administrator. It can allow you to automate tasks and scripts so that you don't have to remember to run them manually.

While the basics are pretty easy, you can get a lot more complex. For more information on crontab head up to the crontab manual page. You can also simply do a web search for "crontab" which will give you a wealth of results to help you fine-tune your crontab skills.