Setting up a cron job
Cron is an old-fashioned but reliable way of executing commands. It has been around since the 1970s in Unix, and it's an old favorite in system administration to perform maintenance tasks such as freeing up disk space, rotating log files, making backups, and other common, repetitive operations.
This recipe is Unix and Unix-like operating systems specific, so it will work in Linux and macOS. While it's possible to schedule a task in Windows, it's very different and uses Task Scheduler, which won't be described here. If you have access to a Linux server, this can be a good way of scheduling periodic tasks.
The main advantages are as follows:
- It's present in virtually all Unix or Linux systems and configured to run automatically.
- It's easy to use, although a little deceptive at first.
- It's well known. Almost anyone involved with admin tasks will have a general idea of how to use it.
- It allows...
