Linux · Job Scheduling (cron & timers)

In what order do the seven fields of a line in /etc/crontab appear, and what do an asterisk and the notation slash-n each do to a time field?

Answer locked. Get the free KnowCard app to reveal it — plus spaced-repetition review so it actually sticks.

This is one card from the KnowCard library — thousands more across SAP, Linux, Python and more. In the app you get the answer, AI explanations, and cards that come back right before you would forget them. Free to start on iOS, Android or the web.

More in Job Scheduling (cron & timers)

Your machine unexpectedly starts hitting the disk and sending mail every 60 seconds. What about the cron daemon's design explains this once-a-minute rhythm?

Which weekday number schedules a cron job for Sunday, and what surprising thing do the values 0 and 7 have in common?

You add a job as the last line of /etc/crontab but it never runs, even though the syntax looks perfect. What formatting rule is the usual culprit?

You drop a script into /etc/cron.daily but nothing happens on the next run. What one-line permission fix is almost always missing, and what privileges do these scripts run with?

When you edit your personal cron jobs with crontab -e instead of touching /etc/crontab, how does the field layout of your entries differ?

On Debian or Ubuntu, you name a cron.daily script backup.sh and it silently never runs. What naming rule did you break, and why does it exist?

Start learning today

Free to start — download the app or use it in your browser.