Cron

Cron

What Is Cron?

Cron is a unix time based job scheduler tool used to schedule command execution at a specified time interval. These jobs are referred to as cronjobs, and are a great way of automating tasks or scripts so that they can be executed at a specific time.

Overview

A crontab file houses instructions to the cron daemon of the basic form: "run this command at this time on this date". Each user can have their own crontab file.

Crontab Syntax

crontab [ -u user ] file
crontab [ -u user ] { -l | -r | -e }
crontab [ -u user ] [ -i ] { -e | -l | -r }
crontab [ -u user ] [ -l | -r | -e ] [-i] [-s]

Cron Expression Table

Cron actions are driven by a crontab file, also known as a "cron table". The user's crontab file is a configuration file that specifies shell commands to run at a given schedule.

Every crontab file consists of two parts: a schedule and a command. Here is a look into the scheduling syntax:

# ┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
# │ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)
# │ │ ┌───────────── day of the month (1 - 31)
# │ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12)
# │ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of the week (0 - 6) (Sunday to Saturday;
# │ │ │ │ │                                   7 is also Sunday on some systems)
# │ │ │ │ │
# │ │ │ │ │
# * * * * * <command to execute>

A crontab file has five fields; each field is represented by an asterisk to determine the data and time of a certain task.

Crontab Characters

Asterisk (*) - defines all the scheduling parameters.

Comma (,) - maintains two or more execution times of a single command.

Hyphen (-) - determines the range of time when setting several execution times of a single command.

Slash (/) - creates predetermined intervals of time in a specific range.

Last (L) - determines the last day of the week given in. a month. Example: 4L means the last Thursday.

Weekday (W) - determines the day of the week, followed by a number ranging from 1 to 5. Example: 1#2 means the second Monday

Question mark (?) - to leave blank

Crontab Options

To install, update, or edit a job in crontab, use the -e option.

$ crontab -e

To list crontab entires, use the -l option

$ crontab -l

To remove ALL jobs from crontab, use the -r option

$ crontab -r

To remove confirm removing a job from crontab, use the -i option

$ crontab -i -r

To add SELINUX security to a crontab file,

$ crontab -s

To edit another user's crontab file, use the user -u option and specify the username

$ crontab -u username -e

To list other user crontab entries

$ crontab -u username -l

NOTE: By default, cron uses vim to edit the crontab file. If you're not familiar with Vi/Vim, use the following command in Cheaha to go through a brief tutorial:

$ vimtutor

Examples

Bash Script (cronjob.sh) To Build Environment (via Singularity) & Run Python Script

#!/bin/bash
#
#SBATCH --job-name=dtn-cronjob
#
# Number of tasks needed for this job. Generally, used with MPI jobs
#SBATCH --ntasks=1
#SBATCH --partition=short
#
# Time format = HH:MM:SS, DD-HH:MM:SS
#SBATCH --time=3:30:00
#
# Number of CPUs allocated to each task. 
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=1
#
# Mimimum memory required per allocated  CPU  in  MegaBytes. 
#SBATCH --mem-per-cpu=1000
#
# Send mail to the email address when the job fails
#SBATCH --mail-type=FAIL
#SBATCH --mail-user=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS

#Set your environment here
export PATH="`cat path`:$PATH"
module load Singularity
# execute python code
CLIENT=$1
TOKEN=$2
singularity exec -B . dtn_image_latest.sif python generate_data.py $CLIENT /datasets/ $PWD/../TEST_TRANSFERS/ -l 01 04 06 12 -t $TOKEN -r /perftest/uab_rc/ -wc
[ ! -d "./data" ] && mkdir ./data
mv ./*.csv ./data/

Bash Script to Run cronjob.sh Every 4 Hours Every Day

#!/bin/bash

# resources 
#SBATCH cpus-per-task=1
#SBATCH mem-per-cpu=4G
#SBATCH array=-1%1
#SBATCH partition=express

# job name, error and output files
#SBATCH --job-name=cron-job
#SBATCH error=err_%j_4a.log
#SBATCH output=out_%j_%4a.log
#SBATCH ntasks=1

# email address to request notifications when the job is complete or if it fails
#SBATCH --mail-type=FAIL
#SBATCH --mail-user=$USER@uab.edu

module load Singularity
singularity pull docker://mmoo97/dtn_image:latest
# Build crontab
sbatch_dir=$(which sbatch)
echo "#!/usr/bin/bash

MAILTO=$USER@uab.edu

# runs cronjob.sh every 4 hours every day
00 */4 * * * cd $USER_DATA/DTN_tests && $sbatch_dir $USER_DATA/DTN_tests/cronjob.sh $CLIENT $TOKEN" > dtn-crontab
echo $PATH > path

The first line in the cron configuration file (crontab file) is the shebang. When this file is executed, if the file content beings with #!, the kernel executes the file specified on the #! line and passes the original file as an argument. Essentially, the shebang tells the terminal which program to use to run your scripts if your script is an executable file.

#!/usr/bin/env