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Short introduction to cron jobs


1&1 Professional 5.0


There are tasks that need to be completed regularly. For example, backing up your hard drive every day at 3:00 a.m., is such a task. Luckily you don't have to set your alarm clock for that as there is a nice little demon to do that for you. Instead you command your computer once to do this task for you and leave the entire matter up to the computer. It is Cron Jobs's task to fulfill such recurring processes automatically and naturally, punctually.

With Cron Jobs you therefore have more possibilities to interactively organise your web site. In a central table you can enter the various commands within the time intervals of your choice. Administer programmes, which the server is to start at a certain time or set your deadline for automatic mailing, for example.

Let's assume you have a web site that is dependent upon the time of day, and you want to offer your viewers the opportunity to take part in the "happy Hour" raffle in the evenings. Your script, which will be punctually administered by Cron Jobs, automatically sets this possibility up or closes it down.

If you want to start a command at a predefined cycled time (annually, monthly, weekly,...), then just use the clock on the server.


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