This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 5 days at 3:00 pm.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 15 */5 * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every 5 days at 3:00 pm.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a time-based task that is set to run at a specific interval. For example, a cron job can be set to run every day at midnight in order to update a database or send out nightly emails. Cron jobs are typically used for maintenance tasks that need to be performed on a regular basis.
To create or edit a cron job, users must first open the crontab file using a text editor. The crontab file contains instructions for the cron daemon, which is the program that actually executes the commands specified in the file. Each line in the crontab file represents a single task or command.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every 5 days at 3:00 pm“:
FUN FACT: If you want to see what commands are scheduled in your crontab, type: “crontab -l”.
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every 5 days at 3:00 pm for several reasons, including:
- Run a backup of all user data once every 5 days
- Generate reports on website usage statistics once every 5 days
- Check for updates to third-party software dependencies once every 5 days
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 1 day
- every 3 days
- every 5 days
- every 4 days
- every 8 days at 7:30 am
- every 1 day at 10:30 pm
- every 2 days at 12:30 am
FUN FACT: Cron is one of the most versatile tools in a Linux administrator’s toolbox..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every 5 days at 3:00 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 cron job cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.