This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 1:00 am and 7:00 pm.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 1-19 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every hour between 1:00 am and 7:00 pm.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a task that is scheduled to run at a specific time or interval. Cron jobs are commonly used to automate system maintenance or administration tasks, such as running backups or sending emails.
Crontab is a file that contains commands and instructions for the cron daemon to execute. The crontab file is usually located in the /etc/cron directory. Each user on a system can have their own crontab file. The commands in the crontab files are executed by the cron daemon at the specified times.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every hour between 1:00 am and 7:00 pm“:
FUN FACT: If you want to see what commands are scheduled in your crontab, type: “crontab -l”.
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every hour between 1:00 am and 7:00 pm for several reasons, including:
- Scheduling a daily backup at 1:00 am
- Generating a report of system usage statistics at 2:00 am
- Running a script to check for updates to installed software at 3:00 am
- Clearing the server’s log files at 4:00 am
- Building and deploying new code changes at 5:00 pm
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 11 hours
- every 5 hours
- every 2 hours
- every 9 hours
- every hour between 3:00 pm and 11:00 pm
- every hour between 2:00 am and 6:00 pm
FUN FACT: When troubleshooting issues with cron jobs, it can be helpful to run them manually from the command line – this will allow you to see any error messages that might be generated..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every hour between 1:00 am and 7:00 pm. Please share this page with friends and colleagues if you find it useful.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment below.
If you are looking for cron jobs that run at certain minutes, hours, days, weekdays, or months, or if you are looking for miscellaneous cron jobs, then check out our relevant sections, or visit our crontab cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.
