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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Essentials Book now available.
Purchase a copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL 9) Essentials Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Essentials Print and eBook (PDF) editions contain 34 chapters and 298 pages
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Chapter 16. Automated Tasks
In Linux, tasks, which are also known as jobs, can be configured to run automatically within a specified period of time, on a specified date, or when the system load average is below a specified number. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pre-configured to run important system tasks to keep the system updated. For example, the slocate database used by the locate command is updated daily. A system administrator can use automated tasks to perform periodic backups, monitor the system, run custom scripts, and more.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux comes with several automated tasks utilities: cron, at, and batch.
Both, Cron and Anacron, are daemons that can be used to schedule the execution of recurring tasks according to a combination of the time, day of the month, month, day of the week, and week.
To use the cron service, the cronie RPM package must be installed and the crond service must be running. anacron is a sub-package of cronie. To determine if these packages are installed, use the rpm -q cronie cronie-anacron command.
16.1.1. Starting and Stopping the Service
To determine if the service is running, use the command /sbin/service crond status. To start the cron service, use the command /sbin/service crond start. To stop the service, use the command /sbin/service crond stop. It is recommended that you start the service at boot time. Refer to Chapter 7, Controlling Access to Services for details on starting the cron service automatically at boot time.
16.1.2. Configuring Anacron Jobs
The main configuration file to schedule jobs is /etc/anacrontab (only root is allowed to modify this file), which contains the following lines:
SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
# the maximal random delay added to the base delay of the jobs
RANDOM_DELAY=45
# the jobs will be started during the following hours only
START_HOURS_RANGE=3-22
#period in days delay in minutes job-identifier command
1 5 cron.daily nice run-parts /etc/cron.daily
7 25 cron.weekly nice run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
@monthly 45 cron.monthly nice run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
The first three lines are variables used to configure the environment in which the anacron tasks are run. The SHELL variable tells the system which shell environment to use (in this example the bash shell). The PATH variable defines the path used to execute commands. The output of the anacron jobs are emailed to the username defined with the MAILTO variable. If the MAILTO variable is not defined, (i.e. is empty, MAILTO=), email is not sent.
The next two lines are variables that modify the time for each scheduled job. The RANDOM_DELAY variable denotes the maximum number of minutes that will be added to the delay in minutes variable which is specified for each job. The minimum delay value is set, by default, to 6 minutes. A RANDOM_DELAY set to 12 would therefore add, randomly, between 6 and 12 minutes to the delay in minutes for each job in that particular anacrontab. RANDOM_DELAY can also be set to a value below 6, or even 0. When set to 0, no random delay is added. This proves to be useful when, for example, more computers that share one network connection need to download the same data every day. The START_HOURS_RANGE variable defines an interval (in hours) when scheduled jobs can be run. In case this time interval is missed, for example, due to a power down, then scheduled jobs are not executed that day.
The rest of the lines in the /etc/anacrontab file represent scheduled jobs and have the following format:
period in days delay in minutes job-identifier command
-
period in days — specifies the frequency of execution of a job in days. This variable can be represented by an integer or a macro (@daily, @weekly, @monthly), where @daily denotes the same value as the integer 1, @weekly the same as 7, and @monthly specifies that the job is run once a month, independent on the length of the month.
-
delay in minutes — specifies the number of minutes anacron waits, if necessary, before executing a job. This variable is represented by an integer where 0 means no delay.
-
job-identifier — specifies a unique name of a job which is used in the log files.
-
command — specifies the command to execute. The command can either be a command such as ls /proc >> /tmp/proc or a command to execute a custom script.
Any lines that begin with a hash sign (#) are comments and are not processed.
16.1.2.1. Examples of Anacron Jobs
The following example shows a simple /etc/anacrontab file:
SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
# the maximal random delay added to the base delay of the jobs
RANDOM_DELAY=30
# the jobs will be started during the following hours only
START_HOURS_RANGE=16-20
#period in days delay in minutes job-identifier command
1 20 dailyjob nice run-parts /etc/cron.daily
7 25 weeklyjob /etc/weeklyjob.bash
@monthly 45 monthlyjob ls /proc >> /tmp/proc
All jobs defined in this anacrontab file are randomly delayed by 6-30 minutes and can be executed between 16:00 and 20:00. Thus, the first defined job will run anywhere between 16:26 and 16:50 every day. The command specified for this job will execute all present programs in the /etc/cron.daily directory (using the run-parts script which takes a directory as a command-line argument and sequentially executes every program within that directory). The second specified job will be executed once a week and will execute the weeklyjob.bash script in the /etc directory. The third job is executed once a month and runs a command to write the contents of the /proc to the /tmp/proc file (e.g. ls /proc >> /tmp/proc).
16.1.2.1.1. Disabling Anacron
In case your system is continuously on and you do not require anacron to run your scheduled jobs, you may uninstall the cronie-anacron package. Thus, you will be able to define jobs using crontabs only.
16.1.3. Configuring Cron Jobs
The configuration file to configure cron jobs, /etc/crontab (only root is allowed to modify this file), contains the following lines:
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/
# For details see man 4 crontabs
# Example of job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# | .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# | | .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# | | | .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# | | | | .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# | | | | |
# * * * * * user command to be executed
The first three lines contain the same variables as an anacrontab file, SHELL, PATH and MAILTO. For more information about these variables, refer to Section 16.1.2, “Configuring Anacron Jobs”. The fourth line contains the HOME variable. The HOME variable can be used to set the home directory to use when executing commands or scripts. The rest of the lines in the /etc/crontab file represent scheduled jobs and have the following format:
minute hour day month day of week user command
-
minute — any integer from 0 to 59
-
hour — any integer from 0 to 23
-
day — any integer from 1 to 31 (must be a valid day if a month is specified)
-
month — any integer from 1 to 12 (or the short name of the month such as jan or feb)
-
day of week — any integer from 0 to 7, where 0 or 7 represents Sunday (or the short name of the week such as sun or mon)
-
user — specifies the user under which the jobs are run
-
command — the command to execute (the command can either be a command such as ls /proc >> /tmp/proc or the command to execute a custom script)
For any of the above values, an asterisk (*) can be used to specify all valid values. For example, an asterisk for the month value means execute the command every month within the constraints of the other values.
A hyphen (-) between integers specifies a range of integers. For example, 1-4 means the integers 1, 2, 3, and 4.
A list of values separated by commas (,) specifies a list. For example, 3, 4, 6, 8 indicates those four specific integers.
The forward slash (/) can be used to specify step values. The value of an integer can be skipped within a range by following the range with /<integer>. For example, 0-59/2 can be used to define every other minute in the minute field. Step values can also be used with an asterisk. For instance, the value */3 can be used in the month field to run the task every third month.
Any lines that begin with a hash sign (#) are comments and are not processed.
Users other than root can configure cron tasks by using the crontab utility. All user-defined crontabs are stored in the /var/spool/cron/ directory and are executed using the usernames of the users that created them. To create a crontab as a user, login as that user and type the command crontab -e to edit the user's crontab using the editor specified by the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variable. The file uses the same format as /etc/crontab. When the changes to the crontab are saved, the crontab is stored according to username and written to the file /var/spool/cron/username . To list the contents of your own personal crontab file, use the crontab -l command.
When using the crontab utility, there is no need to specify a user when defining a job.
The /etc/cron.d/ directory contains files that have the same syntax as the /etc/crontab file. Only root is allowed to create and modify files in this directory.
The cron daemon checks the /etc/anacrontab file, the /etc/crontab file, the /etc/cron.d/ directory, and the /var/spool/cron/ directory every minute for any changes. If any changes are found, they are loaded into memory. Thus, the daemon does not need to be restarted if an anacrontab or a crontab file is changed.
16.1.4. Controlling Access to Cron
The /etc/cron.allow and /etc/cron.deny files are used to restrict access to cron. The format of both access control files is one username on each line. Whitespace is not permitted in either file. The cron daemon (crond) does not have to be restarted if the access control files are modified. The access control files are checked each time a user tries to add or delete a cron job.
The root user can always use cron, regardless of the usernames listed in the access control files.
If the file cron.allow exists, only users listed in it are allowed to use cron, and the cron.deny file is ignored.
If cron.allow does not exist, users listed in cron.deny are not allowed to use cron.
Access can also be controlled through Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM). These settings are stored in /etc/security/access.conf. For example, adding the following line in this file forbids creating crontabs for all users except the root user:
-:ALL EXCEPT root :cron
The forbidden jobs are logged in an appropriate log file or, when using “crontab -e”, returned to the standard output. For more information, refer to access.conf.5 (i.e. man 5 access.conf).
16.1.5. Black/White Listing of Cron Jobs
Black/White listing of jobs is used to omit parts of the defined jobs that do not need to be executed. When calling the run-parts script on a cron folder, such as /etc/cron.daily, we can define which of the programs in this folder will not be executed by run-parts.
To define a black list, create a jobs.deny file in the folder that run-parts will be executing from. For example, if we need to omit a particular program from /etc/cron.daily, then, a file /etc/cron.daily/jobs.deny has to be created. In this file, specify the names of the omitted programs from the same directory. These will not be executed when a command, such as run-parts /etc/cron.daily, is executed by a specific job.
To define a white list, create a jobs.allow file.
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