Execute a Command at a Specific Time


2012-08-31

There are two good ways to make your computer execute a command at a specific time of the day: cron and the "at" command. We're going to take a look at the quick way to do this via the terminal with "at".

echo "ls" | at 15:09

This example will execute the ls command at 3:09pm according to your system's clock.

When you enter this command you will see a confirmation:

lcl@gnu_linux:~$ echo "ls" | at 15:09
warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
job 2 at Fri Aug 31 15:09:00 2012