Run Cron Every Hour Debian

Question

How can I setup a cron job in debian to run a certain url once every hour. There`s no control panel or anything.

Same as on every other distro. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 11 '11 at 04:20 — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Mar 11 '11 at 04:20
where`s the file located – Belgin Fish Mar 11 '11 at 04:22 — Belgin Fish, Mar 11 '11 at 04:22

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 11 '11 at 04:28

You can do that in different ways:

Make a simple script to run the command and copy it to /etc/cron.hourly (don't forget to add the execute permission on it).
Add a snippet of crontab to /etc/cron.d.
Use crontab -e as root and add a line to it executing the command directly.

To access an URL you can use links, lynx, wget, curl and other text mode browsers. Each one will have it's quirks. I suppose curl or wget can be the easier ones to use.

I strongly recommend you to read this article as well as the cron manpage.

Dennis Williamson · Answer 2 · 2013-06-24T16:49:51.573

4

Edit /etc/crontab and add a line like the following:

0 * * * * root /path/to/executable

Or you can put it in your user crontab by running crontab -e and add the same line but omit the username field.

Of course, as others have said, you can add a script or symlink to /etc/cron.hourly.

edited Jun 24 '13 at 16:49

answered Mar 11 '11 at 04:27

Dennis Williamson

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Isn't that one asterik too much? – acme Jun 24 '13 at 14:11

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 11 '11 at 04:26

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Command scheduling with cron. Take a look at /etc/cron.hourly. Everything you place in there will get executed each and every hour.

answered Mar 11 '11 at 04:26

jliendo

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score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 27 '12 at 02:49

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You should be able to find the answer here, though the above comments lay it out nicely already.

edited Jun 27 '12 at 02:49

mgorven

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answered Mar 11 '11 at 07:51

Kyle

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Run Cron Every Hour Debian

4 Answers4