Nowadays things are becoming automated and computers help us to arrange our routine tasks so that user can make minds to do more useful things. Due to critical time, one has to ensure the need of tasks is done without any interference. In a business of eCommerce, whether webmaster is on vacation, a website will still live. How are automated tasks, reminders, alerts, invoices, and reports processed? Cron Job is a tool used to schedule web hosting tasks on Linux server.
Linux Commands
Cron Jobs is a system to schedule Linux commands, to automate some tasks or commands without any interference. Using cron job, a user needs to know to execute Linux commands in Linux command line.
Shell Scripts and Syntax
In a shell script, Cron jobs can be used to run single or multiple commands. Rather than setting up multiple cron jobs, a user can merge all commands executed at a single time. Cron commands used to follow some specific syntax or nomenclature and setup according to it. It is an easy task to setup commands scheduling, to consult programmers is best and a couple of tests is useful for implementing in a live environment.
Command Line or GUI
Web Hosting Control Panels generally has Graphical User Interface for users to setup cron job. A process is simplified by it and use of command line is avoided which helps user providing preset schedules or provides assistance to make format syntax for commands. A web host allows users to setup crons without providing command line access. GUI provides validity to commands for any errors and user will do quickly that what should be put in. But on another side, through command line users want to insert cron jobs. Some web hosts allow limited shell access to Linux command line, but most don't allow it.
Common Uses
Cron jobs are widely used for billing, email alerts, reminder systems and system administrations. Cron jobs are used by web hosts, web apps and eCommerce websites or systems scheduling to generate reminders, invoices, initiate billing, renew services and calculate also resource usage. It is used by eCommerce platforms for billing reminder scheduling and calculating data to date invoices. Scheduling systems are used by Calendar services to initiate email or SMS alerts to users. To generate server reports it is used by System Administrators and provides information to users about their bandwidth usage and disk space. Programmers will use to generate data on the performance of the site or to recreate website activity to clear logs or cached files in an account. Software updates are checked by software providers on daily basis. These are used by Webmasters for maintaining backups or large files.