A Beginner’s Guide to cron Command in Linux

By using the cron command, we can schedule and run many tasks automatically in Linux/Unix. You can execute them once or on a regular basis. Cron is widely used to schedule repetitive tasks at regular intervals (using commands listed in a file called ‘crontab’), and the ‘at’ function is a way of scheduling a task once during a specific period.For each user, Crontab maintains a crontab file. Automated jobs will be extremely helpful for many administrators who manage Linux servers.

In general, the crontab function is used for backups, updating systems, synchronizing servers, etc. The great thing about cron is that you don’t have to understand it in detail, instead, you just need to know how to use it as part of setting up cron jobs.