A cron is a utility that allows tasks to automatically run in the background of the system at regular intervals by use of the cron daemon. Crontab (CRON TABle) is a file which contains the schedule of cron entries to be run and at what times they are to be run. This can be quite useful. For example, you may have a personal temporary directory that you wish to be cleaned out once a day to keep your quota from being exceeded. This is where cron scheduling comes in to play. Not all systems allow for a cron schedule to be setup. You need to see your system administrator to see if it is available on your system.

Start/Stop/Restart cron service in Redhat/Fedora/CentOS

If you are using Redhat/Fedora/CentOS Linux login as root and use the following commands.

Start cron service
To start cron service, enter:

# /etc/init.d/crond start

Or

# service crond start

Stop cron service
To stop cron service, enter:

# /etc/init.d/crond stop

Or

# service crond stop

Restart cron service
To restart cron service, enter:

# /etc/init.d/crond restart

Or

# service crond restart

Start/Stop/Restart cron service in Debian/Ubuntu

If you are using Debian/Ubuntu Linux login as root and use the following commands.

Start cron service
To start cron service, enter:

# sudo /etc/init.d/cron start

Or

# sudo service cron start

Stop cron service
To stop cron service, enter:

# sudo /etc/init.d/cron stop

Or

# sudo service cron stop

Restart cron service
To restart cron service, enter:

# sudo /etc/init.d/cron restart

Or

# sudo service cron restart