Cron File Format & Usage

field allowed values ----- -------------- minute 0-59 hour 0-23 day of month 1-31 month 1-12 (or names, see below) day of week 0-7 (0 or 7 is Sun, or use names)

A field may be an asterisk (*), which always stands for ``first-last''.

Ranges of numbers are allowed. Ranges are two numbers separated with a hyphen. The specified range is incluð sive. For example, 8-11 for an ``hours'' entry specifies execution at hours 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Lists are allowed. A list is a set of numbers (or ranges) separated by commas. Examples: ``1,2,5,9'', ``0-4,8-12''.

Step values can be used in conjunction with ranges. Folð lowing a range with ``/'' specifies skips of the number's value through the range. For example, ``0-23/2'' can be used in the hours field to specify command execuð tion every other hour (the alternative in the V7 standard is ``0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22''). Steps are also permitted after an asterisk, so if you want to say ``every two hours'', just use ``*/2''.

Names can also be used for the ``month'' and ``day of week'' fields. Use the first three letters of the particð ular day or month (case doesn't matter). Ranges or lists of names are not allowed.

The ``sixth'' field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run. The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or % character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the SHELL variable of the cronfile. Percent-signs (%) in the command, unless escaped with backslash (\), will be changed into newline characters, and all data after the first % will be sent to the command as standard input.

Note: The day of a command's execution can be specified by two fields -- day of month, and day of week. If both fields are restricted (ie, aren't *), the command will be run when _e_i_t_h_e_r field matches the current time. For examð ple, ``30 4 1,15 * 5'' would cause a command to be run at 4:30 am on the 1st and 15th of each month, plus every Friday.

Instead of the first five fields, one of eight special strings may appear:

string meaning
------ -------

@reboot Run once, at startup.

@yearly Run once a year, "0 0 1 1 *".

@annually (same as @yearly)

@monthly Run once a month, "0 0 1 * *".

@weekly Run once a week, "0 0 * * 0".

@daily Run once a day, "0 0 * * *".

@midnight (same as @daily)

@hourly Run once an hour, "0 * * * *".