Table of Contents

Software – CRON

We allow users to run Cron Jobs (Scheduled Tasks) which can be helpful for some automated tasks.

How to use Cron

Simply type crontab -e to open up your crontab editor (the default editor is vi/vim but you can change this with the EDITOR variable.

Cron jobs in your Crontab run under your user account with all your privileges so make sure if you’re executing any scripts that they are not editable by others (such as rwxr-x— or 750) and that if you are including any external resources that you trust the source as you are accountable for any security issues from your user account.

Please be aware that we do NOT backup user Cron jobs. So ensure you keep your own copy stored in your home directory.

We also do not guarantee that Cron jobs will run regularly and if the system has any major issues, it may not run your Cron.

Where can I run/save Cron jobs?

  • Login
  • Login2
  • Your Desktop
  • GridUI1
  • GridUI2

Where cant I run/save Cron jobs?

  • Grid Nodes
  • CPU Nodes
  • GPU Nodes
  • WS Nodes
  • GridUI3
  • Other Peoples Desktop

Extra Guides

Ubuntu have a very helpful guide and mostly relevant to all Linux Distros – https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto#Starting_to_Use_Cron

Arch Linux has more in-depth guide although it assumes you have root access for some which you don’t have on our systems – https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/cron#Crontab_format

If you’re still struggling to get the syntax right try the Crontab Generator – https://crontab-generator.org/