Bhupendra Kunwar Blog

How to Guide:  Setting up a Cron Job in Linux

1. Enter the following command in the console
crontab -e

2. Adding the cron job. Edit the cron file. You cron job shall look like this
1 2 3 4 5 /path/to/command

eg

10 3 * * * /root/backup.sh

This will run the cron job at 3.10 am

* 1: Minute (0-59)
* 2: Hours (0-23)
* 3: Day (0-31)
* 4: Month (0-12 [12 == December])
* 5: Day of the week(0-7 [7 or 0 == sunday])
* /path/to/command - Script or command name to schedule

3. If you want to execute a php script instead of a shell command, your cron job shall look like this

1 2 3 4 5 /path/to/php/interpreter -q /path/to/command

eg.

10 3 * * * /usr/bin/php -q /var/www/html/cron.php