This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 10:00 am and 9:00 pm.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 10-21 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every hour between 10:00 am and 9:00 pm.”
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 commonly used to automate system maintenance or administration tasks, such as running backups or sending emails.
A crontab is a table or list of commands that are scheduled to run at specified times. The commands in a crontab file (also called a “cron table”) are normally executed by the cron daemon, which runs in the background and executes these commands automatically.
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 10:00 am and 9:00 pm“:
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..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every hour between 10:00 am and 9:00 pm for several reasons, including:
- Running a backup
- Checking for updates
- Automatically generating reports
- Cleaning up temporary files
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 12 hours
- every 4 hours
- every 8 hours
- every 6 hours
- every 12 hours at 30 minutes past the hour
- every hour between 5:00 am and 9:00 am
FUN FACT: Each user on a system can have their own crontab, and commands in them will be executed as that user..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every hour between 10:00 am and 9:00 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.