Set up cron jobs on Ubuntu

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto/ is very useful

Basic steps

• put a script or symlink in /etc/cron.hourly/, /etc/cron.daily/, /etc/cron.weekly/, or /etc/cron.monthly/ as appropriate
  • NOTE: On Ubuntu, there must NOT be any dots in the filename, so that means no file extensions
• You can test what scripts will be run for each one with this command (or similar):

  run-parts --test /etc/cron.hourly
  

• Check whether cron daemon is running:

  sudo status cron
  

• Check log file for cron related entries (note the ‘-i’ for case-insensitive):

  grep -i cron /var/log/syslog
  

• NOTE: There is no log of output from cron jobs. You need to handle that on a per script basis, or change the logging config.