Cron, at
ON THE DOT
The cron and at utilities help automate processes on a Linux system. You can set up automatic backups or even wake up in the morning with a track from your MP3 collection.
In Linux, there is no need to take notes as reminders of tasks you need to perform in the future. The at program lets you schedule tasks right now, and cron handles recurring jobs.
A daemon runs in the background to ensure the tasks are performed according to the schedule. The daemon checks for new jobs once a minute. The daemon for at is named atd, and the cron daemon is called cron(d).
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