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Cron Jobs

Server Tools manages system-wide cron jobs as individual files in /etc/cron.d/. Every job runs as root.

Add a job

server-tools cron add --schedule '0 3 * * *' --command '/usr/local/bin/cleanup.sh' --name 'nightly-cleanup'

All three options are required. The tool writes the file /etc/cron.d/<name> with mode 644:

# Cron Job - Created 2026-01-15 03:00:00 by server-tools
0 3 * * * root /usr/local/bin/cleanup.sh

Name

The name is converted to lowercase, every character except a-z, 0-9, _ and - becomes _. Nightly Cleanup becomes nightly_cleanup. If the file exists, the tool asks Overwrite existing cron job?. With --yes it is overwritten without a prompt.

Schedule

Five fields that consist only of digits and the characters *, /, , and -, for example */15 * * * * or 0 4 * * 1-5. Names such as mon or jan and shortcuts such as @daily are rejected.

Command

At most 500 characters, printable characters only, no line break.

List

server-tools cron list

Shows every file in /etc/cron.d with its content and then the root crontab (crontab -l). All files are shown, not only those created by Server Tools.

As a CLI command, cron list currently prints only the first file and then exits with code 1. In the menu ("List cron jobs") the output runs through completely. On the shell, show the files with cat /etc/cron.d/*.

Remove

server-tools cron remove --pattern nightly-cleanup

The tool searches all files in /etc/cron.d/ for the search text (as a fixed string, not a regular expression). For every match it shows the content and asks Delete this cron job?. The whole file is deleted. If there is no match, the command ends with exit code 1.

The search is not limited to files of Server Tools. Cron files of other packages are also found if they contain the text. With --yes all matches are deleted without a prompt. Choose a pattern that only matches your job and check it with cron list first.

Example: daily database backup

server-tools cron add \
    --schedule '0 2 * * *' \
    --command '/usr/local/bin/server-tools --yes db backup --name shop_db' \
    --name 'db-backup-shop'

For cron jobs use db backup per database. For db backup-all note the limitation on the Databases page.

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