This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 5 hours at 20 minutes past the hour.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
20 */5 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every 5 hours at 20 minutes past the hour.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a task that is scheduled to run at a specific time or interval. Cron jobs are typically used for maintenance tasks, such as backing up data or updating software.
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 hours at 20 minutes past the hour“:
FUN FACT: Cron jobs can be set up to run at specific times, or they can be configured to run periodically (e.g., every hour)..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every 5 hours at 20 minutes past the hour for several reasons, including:
- Automatically generate reports
- Perform regular maintenance tasks
- Check for updates to software
- Synchronize data between servers
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 4 hours
- every 6 hours
- every 3 hours
- every 8 hours
- every 2 hours
- every hour between 8:00 am and 10:00 am
- every hour between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm
- every 6 hours at 50 minutes past the hour
FUN FACT: Cron jobs are stored in a file called “crontab”, which is short for “cron table”..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every 5 hours at 20 minutes past the hour. 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.