1.\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)crontab.5 8.4 (Berkeley) 06/01/94 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt CRONTAB 5 10.Os 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm crontab 13.Nd chronological services schedule file 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm crontab 16.Sh DESCRIPTION 17The 18.Nm crontab 19file contains the schedules used by the 20.Xr cron 8 21daemon. 22Each line in the schedule gives a time of execution 23and the command to be executed. 24.Pp 25A line consists of 26two fields giving the time, 27three fields giving the day, 28a user name field, 29and lastly the command to be 30executed. 31The first five fields are space 32or tab 33separated and may 34consist of a number, 35a comma separated list of numbers, 36or an asterisk meaning any or all possible values. 37The last field (the command field) may contain spaces. 38A field containing two hyphen separated numbers is treated as 39an inclusive range. 40.Pp 41The fields are: 42.Bl -enum -offset indent 43.It 44The minute of the hour, a number from 0 to 59. 45.It 46The hour, a number from 0 to 23. 47.It 48The day in terms of the month, a number from 1 to 31. 49.It 50The month in terms of the year, a number from 1 to 12. 51.It 52The day in terms of the week, a number from 1 to 7. 53Monday is considered day one, Sunday is day seven. 54.It 55The name of a user: the command will be run with the 56user's uid and permissions. 57.It 58The command to execute. This field may be terminated with a 59newline or the 60.Ql % 61character. 62.El 63.Pp 64An optional file 65.Nm crontab.local 66may be created and used for additional scheduling. 67.Sh EXAMPLES 68In the example below, 69the first field indicates the command should be executed at the hour, 70a quarter past the hour, on the half hour and at a quarter to the hour. 71The next four fields indicate the command should be run every hour, 72every day. The sixth field indicates the command is to be run with 73root privileges. 74.Bd -literal -offset indent 750,15,30,45 * * * * root /usr/libexec/atrun 76.Ed 77.Pp 78In this next example, 79the first field indicates this command should be executed on the half hour. 80The second field constrains the hour to 3 A.M. The third and fourth 81fields indicate any day of the month and any month of the year, but are 82constrained by the fifth field to the sixth day of the week (Saturday). 83The command is to be executed with root privileges. The example shown here 84has been folded (spread across two lines) to make it readable. 85It must not be folded in the the 86.Nm crontab 87file. 88.Bd -literal -offset indent 8930 3 * * 6 root /bin/sh /etc/weekly 2>&1 | tee 90 /var/log/weekly.out | mail -s "weekly output" root 91.Ed 92.Sh SEE ALSO 93.Xr cron 8 94.Xr rc 8 95.ne 1i 96.Sh FILES 97.Bl -tag -width /etc/crontab.local -compact 98.It Pa /etc/crontab 99General system tasks. 100.It Pa /etc/crontab.local 101Optional local tasks. 102.It Pa /etc/rc 103System initialization script (normally, 104.Nm cron 105is executed from this script.) 106.Sh HISTORY 107A 108.Nm crontab 109file appeared in 110.At v6 . 111