This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run once per week on Thursday.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 0 * * 4
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Once per week on Thursday.”
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.
To create or edit a cron job, users must first open the crontab file using a text editor. The crontab file contains instructions for the cron daemon, which is the program that actually executes the commands specified in the file. Each line in the crontab file represents a single task or command.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “once per week on Thursday“:
- Field 1: (0) indicates that the task will be run at minute 0.
- Field 2: (0) indicates that the task will be run at hour 0 (12 am).
- Field 3: (*) indicates that the task will be run every day of the month.
- Field 4: (*) indicates that the task will be run every month.
- Field 5: (4) indicates that the task will be run every Thursday.
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..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run once per week on Thursday for several reasons, including:
- Checking for updates to a software package
- Deleting temporary files that are no longer needed
- Generating reports based on usage data
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- once per week on Tuesday
- once per week on Saturday
- once per week on Sunday
- once per week on Thursday
- once per week on Wednesday
- once per week on Monday
- once per day on Wednesday to Thursday
- once per day on Friday to Saturday
FUN FACT: Cron is one of the most versatile tools in a Linux administrator’s toolbox..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs once per week on Thursday. 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.
