Cron Job Every Hour Between 2:00 am & 4:00 am (Crontab)

This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 2:00 am and 4:00 am.

The Cron Job/Crontab

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

0 2-4 * * *

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

“Every hour between 2:00 am and 4:00 am.”

What is a Cron Job & Crontab?

A cron job is a scheduled task that is typically executed by the operating system on a regular basis. Cron jobs are often used to perform maintenance or administrative tasks, such as backing up data or updating software.

The crontab is a file that contains instructions for the cron daemon. The crontab is typically edited using the crontab command.

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 2:00 am and 4:00 am“:

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

Field 2: (2-4) indicates that the task will be run between hours 2 and 4 (2 am to 4 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 are used to schedule commands or scripts to run automatically at a specified time and date..

Use Cases

You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every hour between 2:00 am and 4:00 am for several reasons, including:

• Sending a wake-up call to someone who needs to be up early for work
• Running a backup on a computer system
• Checking the status of an overnight process

Similar Cron Jobs

You might also want to run a crontab:

• every 12 hours
• every 7 hours
• every 4 hours
• every 1 hour
• every 3 hours
• every hour between 4:00 am and 1:00 pm
• every hour between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm
• every hour between 6:00 am and 9:00 pm

FUN FACT: Cron jobs are named after the Greek god Chronos, who represents time itself..

Wrapping Up

In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every hour between 2:00 am and 4:00 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.