How to Use the Cron and Crontab commands The 'Cron' Command The cron command starts a process that executes commands at specified dates and times. Regularly scheduled commands can be specified according to instructions found in the crontab files in the directory /var/spool/cron/crontabs. Users can submit their own crontab files via the crontab command. The 'Crontab' Command Crontab copies the specified file or standard input if no file is specified, into a directory that holds all users' crontab s. SYNOPSIS : crontab [file] crontab -e [-u username] crontab -r [-u username] crontab -l [-u username] The -e option edits a copy of the current users' crontab file or creates an empty file to edit if crontab does not exist. The -r option removes a user's crontab from the crontab directory. The -l options lists the crontab file for the invoking user. Setting up a Crontab job A crontab file consists of lines of six fields each.The fields are separated by ...