crontab syntax and common schedules
Quick Answer
# Edit your crontab
crontab -e
# Format: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week command
# * * * * *
# 0-59 0-23 1-31 1-12 0-7 (0 and 7 = Sunday)
# Examples:
# Run every day at 2:30 AM
30 2 * * * /home/user/backup.sh
# Run every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/check-health.shUsage
Schedule recurring tasks to run automatically on Linux/macOS servers.
Other causes & fixes
Common schedule examples
# Every minute
* * * * * command
# Every hour at :00
0 * * * * command
# Daily at midnight
0 0 * * * command
# Monday to Friday at 9 AM
0 9 * * 1-5 command
# First day of every month
0 0 1 * * command
# Every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * * commandSpecial strings
@reboot command # run once at startup
@daily command # same as 0 0 * * *
@weekly command # same as 0 0 * * 0
@monthly command # same as 0 0 1 * *
@hourly command # same as 0 * * * *Capture cron output / errors
# Redirect output to a log file
0 2 * * * /home/user/backup.sh >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1
# Or use MAILTO to send errors by email
MAILTO="admin@example.com"
0 2 * * * /home/user/backup.shManage crontab
crontab -l # list your cron jobs
crontab -e # edit
crontab -r # remove all (careful!)
crontab -l > crontab.bak # backup firstRelated