Cron Job Every Hour Between 1:00 am & 3:00 am (Crontab)

This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 1:00 am and 3:00 am.

The Cron Job/Crontab

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

0 1-3 * * *

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

“Every hour between 1:00 am and 3:00 am.”

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 automating system maintenance or administration tasks, such as running backups or sending email reports.

A crontab is a file that contains a list of commands that are to be executed at specified times. The commands in the crontab are executed by the cron daemon.

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 1:00 am and 3:00 am“:

Field 1: (0) indicates that the task will be run at minute 0.

Field 2: (1-3) indicates that the task will be run between hours 1 and 3 (1 am to 3 am).

Field 3: (*) indicates that the task will be run every day of the month.

Field 4: (*) indicates that the task will be run every month.

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

 

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 hour between 1:00 am and 3:00 am for several reasons, including:

• Start a backup at 1:00 am, 2:00 am, and 3:00 am
• Run a script to update data from an external source at 1:05 am, 2:05 am, and 3:05 am
• Send out a notification to all users at 1:10 am, 2:10 am, and 3:10 am

Similar Cron Jobs

You might also want to run a crontab:

• every 9 hours
• every 11 hours
• every 2 hours
• every 4 hours
• every hour between 6:00 am and 5:00 pm
• every hour between 2:00 am and 7:00 pm

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 hour between 1:00 am and 3:00 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.