This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 3:00 am and 8:00 pm.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 3-20 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every hour between 3:00 am and 8:00 pm.”
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 script every hour to backing up a database every day. Cron jobs are typically used for maintenance tasks or tasks that need to be performed regularly, such as checking for updates or sending out reports.
Crontab files are stored in the “/etc/cron*” directories on most Linux systems. Each user has their own crontab file, and there is also a system-wide crontab file that can be used to schedule system tasks.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every hour between 3:00 am and 8:00 pm“:
FUN FACT: When troubleshooting issues with cron jobs, it can be helpful to run them manually from the command line – this will allow you to see any error messages that might be generated..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every hour between 3:00 am and 8:00 pm for several reasons, including:
- A cron job to backup files every hour
- A cron job to update a file every hour
- A cron job to run a script every hour
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 11 hours
- every 4 hours
- every 5 hours
- every 2 hours
- every hour between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm
- every hour between 10:00 am and 10:00 pm
- every hour between 6:00 am and 10:00 am
FUN FACT: When editing your crontab, it is important to use a text editor that supports Unix-style line endings (LF), as opposed to Windows-style line endings (CRLF)..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every hour between 3:00 am and 8:00 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.