Crontab without crontab -e

Question

I would like to add a crontab schedule by doing this in my server:

echo "30 * * * * /home/my/var/dir/to/script /var/etc/etc/etc/" > crontab -e

Is there a way to do this without going doing crontab -e and then typing in the command?

or maybee somehting like crontab -e | time commands etc – Harry Jul 06 '10 at 13:19 — Harry, Jul 06 '10 at 13:19
http://stackoverflow.com/q/4421020/632951 has more answers. – Pacerier Feb 03 '15 at 16:28 — Pacerier, Feb 03 '15 at 16:28

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 06 '10 at 13:21

2

Could try

1)nano /etc/crontab (or any other editor, e.g. emacs)
2)echo "30 * * * * /home/my/var/dir/to/script /var/etc/etc/etc/" > /etc/crontab
3)or put the contents of this into a file, then do "file > /etc/crontab"

answered Jul 06 '10 at 13:21

NT_

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but try dont write in /etc/crontab is dangerous! – diegueus9 Jul 06 '10 at 13:43

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 06 '10 at 13:19

1

like root:

 echo "30 * * * * /home/my/var/dir/to/script /var/etc/etc/etc/" > /var/spool/cron/crontabs/username

answered Jul 06 '10 at 13:19

diegueus9

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score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

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The proper fix is probably to use a file as specified in https://stackoverflow.com/a/4421284/377927, but it is possible to use tee to append a line to the crontab by doing e.g.:

echo "* * * * * ls" | EDITOR="tee -a" crontab -e

tee -a will append stdin to the file it gets specfied, the EDITOR variable tells crontab to use tee -a as editor.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Community

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answered May 08 '15 at 12:14

gauteh

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 01 '15 at 18:04

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If you have the whole crontab in a text file, you can upload a whole crontab to replace the old crontab by doing:

cat <crontab_text_file> | crontab -

This will wipe out your old crontab. Using '-' allows you to use standard input into the crontab.

answered Jul 01 '15 at 18:04

sk8asd123

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 20 '11 at 16:08

We have the following setup in production on RHEL: - a custom software starting sh in init.d , which - handles cron start , stop , reload - writes cron tasks into separate tmp file and loads this file with crontab -e

I have been only maintaining it for several months but it works like a charm ...

Crontab without crontab -e

5 Answers5

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