Creating a custom Cron Job

This article shows how to manually create a custom cron job using your Shell user. It involves logging into the server via SSH to run several commands.

These instructions can also be used to edit an existing cron job you created in the panel, however for simplicity, it's recommended that if you created it in the panel, you continue to edit it from the panel. This is important since adding a cron job in the panel will overwrite your custom crontab file as mentioned below.

The crontab files are where the lists of jobs and other instructions to the cron daemon are kept. Each user at DreamHost has their own individual crontab file that can be accessed by running the following command under your Shell user:

[server]$ crontab -e

Crontab files are simple text files that have a particular format. Each line of a crontab file follows a particular format as a series of fields, separated by spaces and/or tabs. Each field can have a single value or a series of values. A single cron job should take up exactly one line, but this can be a long line (more than 80 characters).

Things to look out for when editing/creating your crontab

Each line has five time/date fields, followed by a command, followed by a newline character ('\n'). A common problem is not including a newline, so hit 'Enter/Return' a time or three at the end of your command.

Another common problem is automatic word-wrap breaking up a long line into multiple lines, so make sure your text editor doesn't do this.

Blank lines and leading spaces and tabs are ignored. Lines whose first non-space character is a hash-sign (#) are ignored as they are considered comments. Note that comments are not allowed on the same line as cron commands, since they are interpreted as being part of the command. Similarly, comments are not allowed on the same line as environment variable settings (like MAILTO).

There are two ways to create custom cron jobs.

• Editing the existing crontab on the server
• Using a custom crontab file

If you've edited the existing crontab

If you have already created a cron job in your panel, you can view it by running crontab -e under your Shell user. If you edit the file to add another cron job below the existing panel one, the panel cron job will continue to function normally in addition to your new edited code.

Any adjustments in the panel will not affect your custom code.

If you switched the server's crontab with your custom crontab

You can also use a custom crontab that you created. If you do this, the server's crontab is overwritten. You can replace the server's crontab by running the following:

[server]$ crontab /home/username/mycrontab

However, if you then add or edit a cron job in the panel, your custom crontab will be overwritten. So you need to either use the server's crontab, or your custom crontab.

The following section is also available as an instructional video:

The instructions below explain how to add a custom cron job under your Shell user. These instructions assume you have NOT added a cron job in the panel yet, so the crontab file is blank.

1. Log into your server via SSH using the Shell user you wish to create the cron job under.
2. Once logged in, run the following command to open your crontab file.

   [server]$ crontab -e
   It looks like you don't have a MAILTO line in your crontab file
   For performance reasons we ask that you specify an address where
   cronjob output will be delivered.  If you do not wish to receive
   cronjob output, simply press enter and cronjob output will not be
   mailed to you.
   
   For more information regarding this, please visit:
   https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215088608
   
   Where would you like cronjob output delivered? (leave blank to disable)
   : admin@example.com
   
   cronjob output will be emailed to admin@example.com
   confirm? (y/N): y
   

   After you add your email (or leave it blank), you must choose which text editor you'd like to use.

   Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.
     1. /usr/bin/joe
     2. /usr/bin/jstar
     3. /usr/bin/jpico
     4. /usr/bin/jmacs
     5. /usr/bin/jed
     6. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
     7. /usr/bin/vim.basic
     8. /usr/bin/rjoe
     9. /usr/bin/mcedit
     10. /usr/bin/vim.tiny
     11. /bin/elvis-tiny
     12. /usr/bin/emacs25
     13. /bin/ed
   
   Choose 1-13 [3]: 6
   

3. You are then asked to choose an editor to view this file. #6 uses the program nano which is the easiest option. View the Creating and editing a file via SSH article for instructions on how to use nano.

   The above options display if you're logged into a shared server. If you are logged into a VPS (private server) running Debian, you will see the following list instead.

   Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.
     1. /bin/ed
     2. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
     3. /usr/bin/emacs24
     4. /usr/bin/vim.basic
     5. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

4. A blank crontab file opens. Add the code for your cron job. This example runs a file named mail.php under the username of 'username'. This should be the same SSH username you're currently logged in under. This example runs the cron job at 8:13 pm.

   # Custom cron job
   MAILTO="user@example.com"
   13 20 * * * php  /home/username/mail.php

   There are two parts to the command. The first part must specify the path to the program you'd like to use to run the cron job. For example let's say you have a PHP file named script.php in your domains directory:

   • /home/username/example.com/script.php

   To run this command you'd enter the path to your chosen version of PHP followed by a space, followed by the path to the file:

   • /usr/local/php74/bin/php /home/username/example.com/script.php

   You could also use the default version by using 'php' instead of the full path.

5. Save the file. You should see the following response:

   crontab: installing new crontab

That's it. The cron job should now run every day at 8:13pm.

The first five fields of the line are the date and time field which specify how frequently and when to execute a command. When adding the cron job in the DreamHost panel, the Date/Time is added for you automatically based on your 'When to run' setting.

Another (graphical) way of looking at these fields.

 * * * * *  command to execute
 │ │ │ │ │
 │ │ │ │ │
 │ │ │ │ └───── day of week (0 - 6) (0 to 6 are Sunday to Saturday, or use names; 7 is Sunday, the same as 0)
 │ │ │ └────────── month (1 - 12)
 │ │ └─────────────── day of month (1 - 31)
 │ └──────────────────── hour (0 - 23)
 └───────────────────────── min (0 - 59)

There are several ways of specifying multiple values in these fields:

• The comma (',') operator specifies a list of values.
  • 1,3,4,7,8
• The dash ('-') operator specifies a range of values.
  • 1-6
  • This is equivalent to "1,2,3,4,5,6".
• The asterisk ('*') operator (frequently known as a wildcard) specifies all possible values for a field. For example, an asterisk in the hour (second) field would be equivalent to 'every hour'.

  If you set the cron job to run on a specific day of the week, the month and day of month fields will still appear as an asterisk (*). The day of the week value will override these values, so it will only run once per week on your selected day.

• The slash ('/') operator can be used in conjunction with an asterisk to skip a given number of values. Example:
  • /3
  • This means to skip to every third value. So "*/3" in the hour field is equivalent to "0,3,6,9,12,15,18,21"; "*" specifies 'every hour' but the "/3" means that only the first, fourth, seventh, etc. values given by "*" are used.

You can also use one of these special strings in place of the time/date fields.

Review the following Wikipedia article for further information:

• Cron – Nonstandard predefined scheduling definitions

The output of the cron job is determined by what is sent to the terminal as a result of the commands/script that are executed. By default, all output is emailed to the location specified in the MAILTO variable (see the MAILTO variable requirement article for more information). As noted above, if your cron job command doesn't create any output on the command line then no email is sent.

You can provide special instructions for the standard out (STDOUT) and standard error (STDERR) output by using the > operator. When you use > without a number before it, it defaults to 1>. This is the standard (non-error) output.

When you use 2> you are specifying what to do with the error output. So, for example, >my_file.txt would redirect standard output to a file called my_file.txt, and 2>my_errors.txt would redirect the errors to a file called my_errors.txt.

By default, files created on DreamHost's servers have a permissions level of 644. If you choose to execute a script via cron, you may need to set the permissions for the file to 744 using chmod in order to allow it to execute properly.

The following examples show what you could add to to a new file in order to create a cron job.

Example 1: This runs a command at 4:10 PM PDT/PST, and emails you the regular and error output to the destination specified by MAILTO.

10 16 * * * perl /home/username/bin/yourscript.pl

Example 2: This runs a command at 2:00 AM PDT/PST on Saturday, and the only output is errors.

0 2 * * 6 sh /home/username/weekly/weekly-pruning.sh > /dev/null

Example 3: This runs at midnight on New Years Day (January 1st), and there is no output.

0 0 1 1 0 python /home/username/happy.new.years.py >/dev/null 2>&1

2>&1 is a special redirect that sends the standard error (“2>”) output to the same place as the standard out (“>” or “1>”) output.

Example 4: This runs a PHP script called cron.php at the top of every hour.

0 * * * * php /home/username/cron.php

Example 5: This runs a local script (i.e. hosted at DreamHost) every 15 minutes.

*/15 * * * * /usr/local/php74/bin/php /home/username/myscript.php

Example 6: This runs an external script (i.e. hosted elsewhere) every 30 minutes using curl.

*/30 * * * * /usr/bin/curl -s https://example.com/send.php &> /dev/null

&>/dev/null is an abbreviation for 1> /dev/null 2> &1. It redirects both file descriptor 2 (STDERR) and descriptor 1 (STDOUT) to /dev/null.

View unix.stackexchange.com/a/70971 for more information.

Example 7: This runs a local script (i.e. hosted at DreamHost) every 10 minutes.

*/10 * * * * /usr/local/php74/bin/php /home/username/myscript.php

Example 8: This uses wget to download a file to a directory named /cronfolder.

*/10 * * * */usr/bin/wget -P /home/username/cronfolder/ https://example.com/index.html

If you are logged in as a Dedicated server admin user, you can edit the crontab file directly. It is stored here:

/var/spool/cron/crontabs/username

You’ll need to use sudo on your Dedicated Server (or start an interactive session as the root user with sudo -i) to access that file.

[server]$ sudo vi /var/spool/cron/crontabs/username