In Debain and Ubuntu /etc/crontab executes programs written under directories /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.weekly and /etc/cron.monthly on daily, hourly, weekly and monthly basis.Ĭrontab is a utility that maintains crontab files for individual users. Cron searches for these files and load them in the memory for execution. The cron jobs are listed in crontab files and are located in the cron spool area /var/spool/cron/crontabs. The cron daemon is kicked off automatically from /etc/init.d once you enter multi-user run level. For instance, you can set cron job to backup your home directory, send alerts, install software and many more. You can automate almost everything with cron daemon.
The cron jobs are mostly used to automate system maintenance or administration. The cron daemon executes tasks at specific time and these tasks are called cron jobs. Scheduling in Linux is being done by a system daemon named cron. Crontab linux Become an author Introduction
