This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 12:00 am and 3:00 am.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 0-3 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every hour between 12:00 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 commonly used to automate system maintenance or administration tasks, such as running backups or sending emails.
A crontab is a file that contains instructions for the cron daemon. The cron daemon is a program that runs in the background and executes tasks at specified times. A crontab file consists of a series of lines, each of which represents a task to be executed. Each line has five fields, separated by spaces or tabs.
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 12:00 am and 3:00 am“:
FUN FACT: Cron jobs are named after the Greek god Chronos, who represents time itself..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every hour between 12:00 am and 3:00 am for several reasons, including:
- Automatically generate a report at 3:00 am
- Run a backup script at 2:00 am
- Send out nightly email digest at 1:00 am
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 10 hours
- every 12 hours
- every 11 hours
- every 1 hour
- every 5 hours at 50 minutes past the hour
- every 6 hours at 10 minutes past the hour
FUN FACT: If a cron job is not properly configured, it might never execute – so make sure you double-check your settings before setting one up!.
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every hour between 12:00 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.