This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every minute between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
* 4-17 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every minute between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a scheduled task that is typically executed automatically at a predetermined time or interval. Cron jobs are commonly used to perform system maintenance or administrative tasks, such as backing up data or generating reports.
A crontab is a file that contains instructions for the cron daemon. The cron daemon is a program that runs in the background and executes tasks at specified times. A crontab file consists of a series of lines, each of which represents a task to be executed. Each line has five fields, separated by spaces or tabs.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every minute between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm“:
FUN FACT: When configuring a cron job, you can specify the minute, hour, day of the month, month and day of the week when it should run – this gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of when your task will be performed automatically!.
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every minute between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm for several reasons, including:
- A daily backup job that starts at 4:00 am
- A nightly server maintenance job that starts at 4:00 am
- A CPU utilization monitoring script that runs every minute between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 16 minutes
- every 27 minutes
- every 17 minutes
- every 28 minutes
- every 2 minutes
- every 22 minutes
- every minute between 10:00 am and 9:00 pm
- every minute between 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm
FUN FACT: If you want to see what commands are scheduled in your crontab, type: “crontab -l”.
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every minute between 4:00 am and 5:00 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.