This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 5 months on day 20 of the month.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 0 20 */5 *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every 5 months on day 20 of the month.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a Linux utility used for scheduling the execution of commands or scripts at a specified time and date. Cron is typically used for system maintenance or administration, such as running backups or log rotation.
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 months on day 20 of the month“:
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 months on day 20 of the month for several reasons, including:
- Sending out a monthly newsletter on the 20th day of every 5th month
- Generating reports on the 20th day of every 5th month
- Archiving data on the 20th day of every 5th month
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 2 months
- every 6 months
- every 4 months
- every 1 month
- every 3 months
- every 5 months
- every 1 month on day 12 of the month
- every 5 months on day 2 of the month
FUN FACT: When troubleshooting issues with cron jobs, it can be helpful to run them manually from the command line – this will allow you to see any error messages that might be generated..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every 5 months on day 20 of the month. 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.