Pre-requisite
Note
To get a list of all the time zones, run the following command: timedatectl list-timezones
Examples for timezones:
America/Los_AngelesAmerica/New_YorkAmerica/ChicagoAmerica/Denver
To set the Cron job
Use the following commands:
Backup crontab entries
sudo crontab -l > /var/tmp/cron_backup_200919.dat
Note
Where 200919 == YRMMDD
Tip
Do this before you edit or remove.
To edit the crontab, and add a new job as a root user:
sudo crontab -e
Note
The default editor is VIM.
You might see:
0 * * * * /etc/opt/microsoft/mdatp/logrorate.sh
Press “Insert”
Add the following entries:
CRON_TZ=America/Los_Angeles
0 2 * * sat /bin/mdatp scan quick > ~/mdatp_cron_job.log
Note
In this example, we have set it to 00 minutes, 2 a.m. (hour in 24 hour format), any day of the month, any month, on Saturdays. Meaning it will run Saturdays at 2:00 a.m. Pacific (UTC -8).
Press “Esc”
Type “:wq” without the double quotes.
Note
w == write, q == quit
To view your cron jobs, type sudo crontab -l
To inspect cron job runs
sudo grep mdatp /var/log/cron
To inspect the mdatp_cron_job.log*
sudo nano mdatp_cron_job.log
For those who use Ansible, Chef, or Puppet
Use the following commands:
To set cron jobs in Ansible
cron - Manage cron.d and crontab entries
See [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/cron_module.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/cron_module.html) for more information.
### To set crontabs in Chef
```bash
cron resource
```bash
See https://docs.chef.io/resources/cron/ for more information.
To set cron jobs in Puppet
Resource Type: cron
See https://puppet.com/docs/puppet/5.5/types/cron.html for more information.
Automating with Puppet: Cron jobs and scheduled tasks
See https://puppet.com/blog/automating-puppet-cron-jobs-and-scheduled-tasks/ for more information.
Additional information
To get help with crontab
man crontab
To get a list of crontab file of the current user
crontab -l
To get a list of crontab file of another user
crontab -u username -l
To backup crontab entries
crontab -l > /var/tmp/cron_backup.dat
Tip
Do this before you edit or remove.
To restore crontab entries
crontab /var/tmp/cron_backup.dat
To edit the crontab and add a new job as a root user
sudo crontab -e
To edit the crontab and add a new job
crontab -e
To edit other user’s crontab entries
crontab -u username -e
To remove all crontab entries
crontab -r
To remove other user’s crontab entries
crontab -u username -r
Explanation
+—————- minute (values: 0 – 59) (special characters: , – * /)
| +————- hour (values: 0 – 23) (special characters: , – * /)
| | +———- day of month (values: 1 – 31) (special characters: , – * / L W C)
| | | +——- month (values: 1 – 12) (special characters: ,- * / )
| | | | +—- day of week (values: 0 – 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) (special characters: , – * / L W C)
| | | | |*****command to be executed