Book Image

Linux Shell Scripting Essentials

Book Image

Linux Shell Scripting Essentials

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Linux Shell Scripting Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Running tasks at a specific time


In general, when we run a command or script, it starts executing instantly. However, what if we want it to run later at a specific time? For example, I want to download large data from the Internet, but don't want to slow down my Internet bandwidth while I am working. So, I would like to run my download script at 1:00 AM since I won't be using the Internet for any kind of work after 1:00 AM. It is possible to schedule download scripts or commands later at a specified time using the at command. We can also list scheduled tasks using the atq command or remove any scheduled tasks using the atrm command.

Executing scripts using at

We will use the at command to run tasks at a given time. The syntax of using the at command is as follows:

at [Option] specified_time

In the preceding syntax, specified_time refers to the time at which a command or script should run. The time can be in the following format:

Time format

Description

HH:MM

The specific time of the day...