Ubuntu – How to set up a cron job to run every 10 minutes?

cronpythonscripts

I have a python script, and i'd like to make it run every 10 minutes, how can i do this? Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

Make the script executable by:
```
chmod u+x /path/to/script.py
```
Note that, you need a shebang (i.e. indicate interpreter in the first line of the script), for python2:
```
#!/usr/bin/env python2
```
For python3:
```
#!/usr/bin/env python3
```
Open your cron table by
```
crontab -e 
```
Add the following cron entry:
```
*/10 * * * * /path/to/script.py 
```

Note that, if the script is not executable you can indicate the interpreter on the go:

For python2:

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/env python2 /path/to/script.py

For python3:

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/env python3 /path/to/script.py

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Cron job not executing

You did not specify how you added your cronjob. This makes a big difference: if you've used crontab -e within your own account, scripts are run with your user (and thus the crontab entry has one field less -- the user to run it, as that is known). If you simply copied your above snippet to /etc/cron.d, it would fail as you didn't specify a user (or rather as it finds no user named "bash"). So you should take the following steps:

update your question with information concerning how you added the cron job
check the system logs (/var/log/syslog; they could point to possible errors)
add some debug output to your Backup.sh script to see whether it is started

The third point can be achieved in multiple ways:

add a >>/tmp/testlog.log to the end of your crontab entry (to redirect output to a file you can investigate; additionally, a 2>&1 would include output from the error console)
add some lines to your script itself, like e.g. echo "Backup.sh started">/tmp/testlog.log

Moreover: As you intend your script to be run using bash, you should not tell it to use /bin/sh (which would make it use dash on a default Ubuntu installation), but rather /bin/bash. Then make it executable, and you can even omit the "bash" from your crontab entry.

Update:

According to your comment on my answer, you used crontab -e to create the job, and according to your systems logs it is executed, but the definition is rather

*/5 * * * * bash /home/jonathan/Games/Minecraft/Server/Backup.sh &>/dev/null

This redirects all output to the biggest storage in your system, the "black hole": /dev/null eats everything (but never returns anything). Redirecting STDOUT as well as STDERR this way robs you of any error report -- so you never know that they happened at all, let alone the details. For testing, you should omit the &>/dev/null part completely. Even if it works, you should only suppress unnecessary output -- as otherwise you never know when something goes wrong. So better leave out the ampersand at least, so Cron can report any occurring errors.

Furthermore: Once the output is redirected (as in your case to /dev/null), appending another redirect to the end will yield no results, as everything is already gone. So I have to adjust the above advice from "add ... to the end of your crontab entry" to "replace that in your crontab entry" ;)

Ubuntu – Cron Script to run every 5 minutes

crontab -e
add at the end */5 * * * 1-4 /path/to/script &
save and exit

the script is

#!/bin/bash
echo "$(date)" >> /tmp/memory.usage
echo "$(free)" >> /tmp/memory.usage
echo ""

see man 5 crontab for details. Or, an all-in-one cron line:

*/5 * * * 1-4 (echo $(date) && echo $(free) && echo "") >> /tmp/memory.usage

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Cron job not executing

Ubuntu – Cron Script to run every 5 minutes

Related Question