View Full Version : [ubuntu] Cron job to shutdown Ubuntu
jcoyle
September 20th, 2008, 10:10 PM
Hi,
I realise this question has been asked / answered a thousand times, but i am having problems.
I want to set up a cron job to shutdown my ubuntu box at say 11:45 each night, so i do the following:
1. Log on as root
2.
crontab -e
** Here a get a NANO window where i add this:
3.
45 23 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h
4. i then press CTRL-O to WriteOut the file, and leave the default name as it is
5. Terminal displays
crontab: installing new crontab
When 11:45 comes, it does not shutdown or anything.
I am doing something wrong?
Any insights / help appreciated.
Thanks
Joe.
Monotoko
September 20th, 2008, 10:12 PM
there is already a way to do this:
sudo shutdown -h 23:45
that would make it shutdown at 23:45 :)
jcoyle
September 20th, 2008, 10:15 PM
thanks for quick response - will
sudo shutdown -h 23:45
do it every day though?
thanks
Monotoko
September 21st, 2008, 01:20 AM
If you put it in a script and make it start at bootup, yes :)
sorry for the late reply, i went offline
jcoyle
September 21st, 2008, 02:02 AM
hi,
how would i go about doing that? where would i need to save the file?
thanks.
J.
marcthenarc
September 21st, 2008, 02:56 AM
I think it would be easier to use 'shutdown -h now' at the required time.
If you set a time at the end of the shutdown command, chances are, if your system is quite busy, that the cron job will start just *after* 23:45 and then issue a shutdown command that will trigger a shutdown 24 hours later (or rather 23 hours 59 minutes and a few seconds later).
# Shutdown system at 23:45 every day
45 23 * * * /sbin/shutdown -h now
You are then sure that the shutdown command will execute at 23:45 (give or take a few seconds).
mister_p_1998
September 21st, 2008, 06:35 PM
Well my machine shuts down evey day & I do this:
sudo gedit /etc/crontab
put your command in here (it runs crontab as root)
directcharitycontribution
September 26th, 2008, 12:56 AM
Code: 0 3 * * * /sbin/shutdown now
aquinn
July 10th, 2009, 09:31 PM
@mister_p_1998: Excellent tip, thank you.
Here's what I did:
Open /etc/crontab:
sudo gedit /etc/crontab
Add following to end of file:
# At 23.30 every evening shutdown with 1 minute's notice
30 23 * * * root shutdown -h +1
Save and close file
If you're unsure of your crontabbing skills, you can add a simple test to /etc/crontab:
# "touch" a test file every minute
* * * * * root touch /tmp/root-crontab-test
This should create a new file called "root-crontab-test" in the /tmp directory on the first invocation, and then update the "last modified" date every minute. You can monitor this by running:
ls -l /tmp/root-crontab-testYou should see something like:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2009-07-10 21:10 /tmp/root-crontab-test
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