You can access your server's Crontab using the following command:
# crontab -e
By default, you will likely have several cPanel crons in here, such as backups that will be in this format:
30 23 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/upcp --cron
Cron Format
Crons all have the following format:
[minute] [hour] [day-of-month] [month] [day-of-week] [path-to-script]
- Minute can range from 0-59
- Hour can range from 0-23
- Day-of-month can range from 0-31
- Month can range from 1-12 (Where 1 = January and 12 = December)
- Day-of-week can range from 0-7 (Sunday can be either 0 or 7
Examples
Looking back at our cPanel backup example: 30 23 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/upcp --cron
This means that cpanel backups run at the 30th minute of the 23rd hour every-day, or 11:30 PM.
If you wanted backups to run at midnight, you would simply need to edit the Cron to the following:
0 0 * * * /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/upcp --cron
Now, if you say you have your own script that you would only like to run on weekdays at a certain time, you can do the following:
30 0 * * 1,2,3,4,5 /path/script/script.sh OR 30 0 * * 1-5 /path/script/script.sh
This will run 'script.sh' Monday-Friday at 12:30 AM
You can also have scripts run every X for a variable so, for example, if you wanted your script to run every 5 minutes you can do the following:
5 * * * 1,2,3,4,5 /path/script/script.sh OR 30 0 * * 1-5 /path/script/script.sh
Other Options for the Crontab Command
- crontab -l : Display the Crontab
- crontab -r : Remove the Crontab
- crontab -u USER -e : Edit the crontab for a specific user
Hopefully you are now more familiar with editing the Crontab on your server. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to submit a ticket or contact us via our live support system.