cron

Cron is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like operating systems that enables users to schedule commands or scripts to run automatically at specified dates and times, or periodically. It operates as a daemon process, continuously monitoring for scheduled tasks and executing them without…

Key facts

First appeared: 1979
Category: technology
Problem solved: Cron was created to solve the problem of reliably and automatically executing repetitive administrative and user-defined tasks at specified intervals, without requiring manual intervention or continuous user presence. It eliminated the need for manual execution or unreliable, custom-scripted loops for recurring operations.
Platforms: Solaris, BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD), HP-UX, macOS, Linux, Unix, AIX

Related technologies

Python scripts
Database operations (e.g., SQL queries via command-line tools)
System utilities (e.g., rsync, logger)
Perl scripts
Web servers (for log rotation, cache invalidation)
Ruby scripts
Shell scripts (Bash, sh)

Notable users

Small businesses
Academic institutions
Hosting providers
Individual developers
All organizations using Unix-like servers