Scheduling tasks using at command in Linux - kifarunix.com
Published: 2019-09-07 · Archived: 2026-04-06 03:10:48 UTC
Our previous two guides, whose links are below, we covered how to schedule system tasks or jobs in Linux using the cron
and anacron commands. This guide will focus on scheduling tasks using at command in Linux systems.
How to Schedule Cron Jobs/Tasks in Linux/Unix
Scheduling tasks using anacron in Linux/Unix
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at  utility is used to schedule a one-time task. These are the tasks that are executed only once at a specific time.
at  reads commands from standard input or from the file that is specified using the  -f  option.
Jobs scheduled using  at  are executed by the  atd  service.
Scheduling tasks using at command
The at command ordinarily expects time as the argument.
at TIME
Where TIME can be specified using keywords such as;
noon ,  midnight  or  teatime (4:00 PM) ,
next week ,  tomorrow ,  teatime tomorrow ,  next tuesday , next Tue ,  next Tuesday ,  next month .
When executed with no commands or scripts passed to it,  at  commands runs interactively and expects you to enter the
commands to execute from the prompt.
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at 11 PM Dec 2
at>
At the prompt, enter the command to run. For example;
at 11 PM Dec 2
at> echo "This is a test at Job > /tmp/test-at-job"
at 11 PM Dec 2
at> df -hT
When done typing commands, press Ctrl+D to terminate input. When you press Ctrl+D, you will see  <EOT>  at the
command line.
at 11 PM Dec 2
at> df -hT
You can as well pass the commands to execute to at command from command line by specifying the file with commands
using the  -f  option. For example, consider a file called  mycommands.sh  with two shell scripts
cat mycommands.sh
/home/me/myscripts/clean-tmp.sh
/home/me/myscripts/backup.sh
To have at execute these commands next week the same day at midnight;
at -f mycommands.sh midnight next week
You can as well use the standard input redirection symbol;
at teatime next month < mycommands.sh
You can also pipe tasks/commands to at command. For example to create a notification using the notify-send
command,
echo 'notify-send "You need to refill the gas"' -t 1000 | at 17:00
This will send you a notification at 5 PM to refill the gas.
NOTE:
For all the  at  examples that follows below, you can either pass the the commands or scripts or tasks/jobs to be
executed to at command or you can interactively enter them.
To run the job one week from today, same time as when the at job was scheduled;
at next week
To run the job at 4 PM tomorrow
at teatime tomorrow
Run a job on next Tuesday, same time as when the job was scheduled.
at next tue
Run the job next month, same date at midnight.
at midnight next month
using the keyword  now  plus a time period. For example, if to schedule a task to run 4 hours from now, use the time
period  now + 4 hours .
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For example;
To run the job today at 4PM plus 2 hours, that is at 6PM
at 4PM + 2 hours
To run the job one and half hour from now;
at now + 90 minutes
To run the job two minutes from now;
at now + 2 minutes
To run a job next on monday 2 hours after the same time when the job was scheduled;
at monday + 2 hours
using a time of the day either in  24-hour  or  12-hour  clock system. For example;  16:00  or  4:00 PM .
For example;
To run the job at 5PM today;
at 5:00 PM or at 5 PM or at 17:00
using  time of the day  and  date .
The date can be specified in the format  DD.MM.YY ,  MMDDYY  or  MM/DD/YY .
MONTH Date, Year  or  MONTH Date Year  or  MONTH Date . You can write the first three letters of the month
e.g  Jan  or  jan .
For example,
To run the job on first october, year 2019 same time as when the job was scheduled
at 12:30 PM 10/01/19 or at 12:30 PM 01.10.19 or at 12:30 PM 100119
To run the job on 2nd Jan, 2020 same time as when the job was scheduled
at Jan 1, 2020 ot at Jan 1 2020
To run the job at 11 PM on 2nd Dec, this year;
at 11 PM Dec 2
List scheduled at jobs
At command has a utility called  atq  that can be used to list at jobs that are pending execution.
To simply list the at jobs, run;
atq
If there are any jobs pending execution, you will see them on the output;
atq
31 Mon Dec 2 23:00:00 2019 a root
33 Sun Oct 6 16:00:00 2019 a root
32 Fri Sep 13 00:00:00 2019 a root
Similarly, you can use at command with  -l  option.
at -l
Delete Scheduled at jobs
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Scheduled at jobs can be removed using the  atrm  utility or by passing option  -r  to at command.
atr -r <JOB ID>
or
atrm <JOB ID>
For example, based on the output of the  atq  command above, you can remove at job with job number 31 using the
command;
at -r 31
or
atrm 31
To remove all the jobs in the queue, simply obtain the job numbers and remove them as follows;
atrm $(atq | cut -f1)
There are other options that are aliased to atrm command.
at -d <JOB ID>
Print Listed At Jobs to STDOUT
To print listed at jobs to standard output, simply use the command;
at -c <JOB ID>
For example, to cat the at job number 23 to standard output.
at -c 23
Controlling Access to At
It is also possible to control who can run at jobs using the  /etc/at.allow  and  /etc/at.deny  files.
only users listed in the  at.allow  file are allowed to use  at
users listed in  at.deny  file are not allowed to use  at .
Using batch command
Another command almost similar to at command is  batch  command. This command is used to schedule tasks that can only
be executed when system load drops below 1.5 or any value specified in
Batch command does not accepts any parameters and runs interactively.
batch
at>
For example to execute the script,  /home/me/myscripts/clean-tmp.sh , simply run  batch  command and enter the script at
the  at  prompt.
Press Ctrl+d once you are done typing commands;
batch
at> /home/me/myscripts/clean-tmp.sh
at>
batch  command is no longer maintained on most Linux/Unix distributions.
Read more about  at  command on  man at .
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