This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 3 days at 2:00 am.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 2 */3 * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every 3 days at 2:00 am.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a time-based task that is set to run at specific intervals. This can be anything from running a backup script every night to sending out an email notification once a week. Cron jobs are typically used for maintenance or repetitive tasks.
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. The crontab file is used to specify which tasks are to be run and when they are to be run.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every 3 days at 2:00 am“:
FUN FACT: You can use cron to schedule just about anything!.
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every 3 days at 2:00 am for several reasons, including:
- send a nightly email report
- run a backup script
- update an external database
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 1 day
- every 10 days
- every 5 days
- every 4 days
- every 1 day at 2:30 am
- every 3 days at 9:00 pm
- every 8 days at 1:30 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 3 days at 2:00 am. 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 cron job cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.