CRONTAB(5) File Formats CRONTAB(5)
NAME
crontab - files used to schedule the execution of programs
DESCRIPTION
A crontab file contains instructions for the cron(8) daemon in the fol-
lowing simplified manner: "run this command at this time on this date".
Each user can define their own crontab. Commands defined in any given
crontab are executed under the user who owns that particular crontab.
Uucp and News usually have their own crontabs, eliminating the need for
explicitly running su(1) as part of a cron command.
Blank lines, leading spaces, and tabs are ignored. Lines whose first
non-white space character is a pound-sign (#) are comments, and are not
processed. Note that comments are not allowed on the same line as cron
commands, since they are considered a part of the command. Similarly,
comments are not allowed on the same line as environment variable set-
tings.
An active line in a crontab is either an environment setting or a cron
command. An environment setting is of the form:
name = value
where the white spaces around the equal-sign (=) are optional, and any
subsequent non-leading white spaces in value is a part of the value
assigned to name. The value string may be placed in quotes (single or
double, but matching) to preserve leading or trailing white spaces.
Several environment variables are set up automatically by the cron(8)
daemon. SHELL is set to /bin/sh, and LOGNAME and HOME are set from the
/etc/passwd line of the crontab's owner. HOME and SHELL can be over-
ridden by settings in the crontab; LOGNAME can not.
(Note: the LOGNAME variable is sometimes called USER on BSD systems and
is also automatically set).
In addition to LOGNAME, HOME, and SHELL, cron(8) looks at the MAILTO
variable if a mail needs to be send as a result of running any commands
in that particular crontab. If MAILTO is defined (and non-empty), mail
is sent to the specified address. If MAILTO is defined but empty
(MAILTO=""), no mail is sent. Otherwise, mail is sent to the owner of
the crontab. This option is useful if you decide to use /bin/mail
instead of /usr/lib/sendmail as your mailer. Note that /bin/mail does
not provide aliasing and UUCP usually does not read its mail. If MAIL-
FROM is defined (and non-empty), it is used as the envelope sender
address, otherwise, ``root'' is used.
By default, cron sends a mail using the 'Content-Type:' header of
'text/plain' with the 'charset=' parameter set to the 'charmap/codeset'
of the locale in which crond(8) is started up, i.e., either the default
system locale, if no LC_* environment variables are set, or the locale
specified by the LC_* environment variables (see locale(7)). Different
character encodings can be used for mailing cron job outputs by setting
the CONTENT_TYPE and CONTENT_TRANSFER_ENCODING variables in a crontab
to the correct values of the mail headers of those names.
The CRON_TZ variable specifies the time zone specific for the cron ta-
ble. The user should enter a time according to the specified time zone
into the table. The time used for writing into a log file is taken
from the local time zone, where the daemon is running.
The MLS_LEVEL environment variable provides support for multiple per-
job SELinux security contexts in the same crontab. By default, cron
jobs execute with the default SELinux security context of the user that
created the crontab file. When using multiple security levels and
roles, this may not be sufficient, because the same user may be running
in different roles or in different security levels. For more informa-
tion about roles and SELinux MLS/MCS, see selinux(8) and the crontab
example mentioned later on in this text. You can set the MLS_LEVEL
variable to the SELinux security context string specifying the particu-
lar SELinux security context in which you want jobs to be run. crond
will then set the execution context of those jobs that meet the speci-
fications of the particular security context. For more information,
see crontab(1) -s option.
The RANDOM_DELAY variable allows delaying job startups by random amount
of minutes with upper limit specified by the variable. The random scal-
ing factor is determined during the cron daemon startup so it remains
constant for the whole run time of the daemon.
The format of a cron command is similar to the V7 standard, with a num-
ber of upward-compatible extensions. Each line has five time-and-date
fields followed by a username (if this is the system crontab file), and
followed by a command. Commands are executed by cron(8) when the
'minute', 'hour', and 'month of the year' fields match the current
time, and at least one of the two 'day' fields ('day of month', or 'day
of week') match the current time (see "Note" below).
Note that this means that non-existent times, such as the "missing
hours" during the daylight savings time conversion, will never match,
causing jobs scheduled during the "missing times" not to be run. Simi-
larly, times that occur more than once (again, during the daylight sav-
ings time conversion) will cause matching jobs to be run twice.
cron(8) examines cron entries every minute.
The time and date fields are:
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 Sunday, or use names)
A field may contain 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 inclusive. For example, 8-11 for an
'hours' entry specifies execution at hours 8, 9, 10, and 11. The first
number must be less than or equal to the second one.
Randomization of the execution time within a range can be used. A ran-
dom number within a range specified as two numbers separated with a
tilde is picked. The specified range is inclusive. For example, 6~15
for a 'minutes' entry picks a random minute within 6 to 15 range. The
random number is picked when crontab file is parsed. The first number
must be less than or equal to the second one. You might omit one or
both of the numbers specifying the range. For example, ~ for a 'min-
utes' entry picks a random minute within 0 to 59 range.
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. Following a range
with "/<number>" specifies skips of the number's value through the
range. For example, "0-23/2" can be used in the 'hours' field to spec-
ify command execution for every other hour (the alternative in the V7
standard is "0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22"). Step values are also
permitted after an asterisk, so if specifying a job to be run every two
hours, you can use "*/2".
Names can also be used for the 'month' and 'day of week' fields. Use
the first three letters of the particular day or month (case does not
matter). Ranges or lists of names are not allowed.
If the UID of the owner is 0 (root), the first character of a crontab
entry can be "-" character. This will prevent cron from writing a sys-
log message about the command being executed.
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 a "%"
character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the
SHELL variable of the cronfile. A "%" character in the command, unless
escaped with a 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 in the follow-
ing two fields -- 'day of month', and 'day of week'. If both fields
are restricted (i.e., do not contain the "*" character), the command
will be run when either field matches the current time. For example,
"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.
EXAMPLE CRON FILE
# use /bin/sh to run commands, no matter what /etc/passwd says
SHELL=/bin/sh
# mail any output to `paul', no matter whose crontab this is
MAILTO=paul
#
CRON_TZ=Japan
# run five minutes after midnight, every day
5 0 * * * $HOME/bin/daily.job >> $HOME/tmp/out 2>&1
# run at 2:15pm on the first of every month -- output mailed to paul
15 14 1 * * $HOME/bin/monthly
# run at 10 pm on weekdays, annoy Joe
0 22 * * 1-5 mail -s "It's 10pm" joe%Joe,%%Where are your kids?%
23 0-23/2 * * * echo "run 23 minutes after midn, 2am, 4am ..., everyday"
5 4 * * sun echo "run at 5 after 4 every sunday"
Jobs in /etc/cron.d/
The jobs in cron.d and /etc/crontab are system jobs, which are used
usually for more than one user, thus, additionally the username is
needed. MAILTO on the first line is optional.
EXAMPLE OF A JOB IN /etc/cron.d/job
#login as root
#create job with preferred editor (e.g. vim)
MAILTO=root
* * * * * root touch /tmp/file
SELinux with multi level security (MLS)
In a crontab, it is important to specify a security level by crontab -s
or specifying the required level on the first line of the crontab.
Each level is specified in /etc/selinux/targeted/seusers. When using
crontab in the MLS mode, it is especially important to:
- check/change the actual role,
- set correct role for directory, which is used for input/output.
EXAMPLE FOR SELINUX MLS
# login as root
newrole -r sysadm_r
mkdir /tmp/SystemHigh
chcon -l SystemHigh /tmp/SystemHigh
crontab -e
# write in crontab file
MLS_LEVEL=SystemHigh
0-59 * * * * id -Z > /tmp/SystemHigh/crontest
FILES
/etc/crontab main system crontab file. /var/spool/cron/ a directory
for storing crontabs defined by users. /etc/cron.d/ a directory for
storing system crontabs.
SEE ALSO
cron(8), crontab(1)
EXTENSIONS
These special time specification "nicknames" which replace the 5 ini-
tial time and date fields, and are prefixed with the '@' character, are
supported:
@reboot : Run once after reboot.
@yearly : Run once a year, ie. "0 0 1 1 *".
@annually : Run once a year, ie. "0 0 1 1 *".
@monthly : Run once a month, ie. "0 0 1 * *".
@weekly : Run once a week, ie. "0 0 * * 0".
@daily : Run once a day, ie. "0 0 * * *".
@hourly : Run once an hour, ie. "0 * * * *".
CAVEATS
crontab files have to be regular files or symlinks to regular files,
they must not be executable or writable for anyone else but the owner.
This requirement can be overridden by using the -p option on the crond
command line. If inotify support is in use, changes in the symlinked
crontabs are not automatically noticed by the cron daemon. The cron
daemon must receive a SIGHUP signal to reload the crontabs. This is a
limitation of the inotify API.
AUTHOR
Paul Vixie <vixie AT isc.org>
cronie 2012-11-22 CRONTAB(5)
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