Cron Job Every 6 Months On Day 20 Of The Month (Crontab)

This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 6 months on day 20 of the month.

The Cron Job/Crontab

To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:

0 0 20 */6 *

This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):

“Every 6 months on day 20 of the month.”

What is a Cron Job & Crontab?

A cron job is a Linux utility used for scheduling the execution of commands or scripts at a specified time and date. Cron is typically used for system maintenance or administration, such as running backups or log rotation.

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 6 months on day 20 of the month“:

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: (20) indicates that the task will be run on day 20 of every month.

Field 4: (*/6) indicates that the task will be run every 6 months.

Field 5: (*) indicates that the task will be run every day of the week.

 

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 6 months on day 20 of the month for several reasons, including:

• Sending a monthly newsletter on the 20th day of every 6 months
• Checking for updates to a software package on the 20th day of every 6 months
• Generating reports on the usage of a service on the 20th day of every 6 months

Similar Cron Jobs

You might also want to run a crontab:

• every 1 month
• every 5 months
• every 2 months
• every 3 months
• every 4 months
• every 6 months
• every 2 months on day 13 of the month
• every 1 month on day 26 of the month

FUN FACT: If you need to temporarily disable a cron job, you can simply comment out the line in the crontab file that corresponds to that particular task..

Wrapping Up

In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every 6 months on day 20 of the month. 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.