Invision-Graphics

Author: Max Adams

One of the common and probably most important duties of webmasters or website owners is to do routinary actions in their websites. Certain actions such as running scripts, sending group e-mails, or updating the database must be done regularly. However, there are times when your memory fails to serve you right. Other things occupy the busy mind of a webmaster, so sometimes, he forgets about an upcoming scheduled assignment.

Also, some tasks are too difficult to handle that it could take a lot of time and effort before manual labor can complete it. If you own a website that has a considerable number of visitors or subscribers, you can't afford to miss on performing certain tasks. Possible consequences, such as profit loss and damaged company reputation for inability to deliver services on time, are unfavorable to the website owner.

Imagine that you own a website forum and you want to delete account holders that have not been able to log in for, let's say, 30 days. Instead of manually sending each and every inactive member an email that says his account has been removed, why not use a cron to do the job for you? You see, with cron job as your partner, you can easily monitor whose accounts are just a waste of space and who among your members will automatically receive an e-mail reminder after exactly 30 days.

Aside from these, there are other things that a cron job can do to make managing a website an easy job for you.

So, what are cronjobs?

Cron jobs are automated programs created for Unix and Unix-like platforms such as Linux. Their job is to do particular commands that a web developer has assigned them to execute at the exact time and given date.

For example, you need to send a group e-mail every 6:35 AM on the 3rd day of every month. Now, you don't have to remind yourself to wake up earlier than 6:35 AM just to write the content of the group e-mail and send it to all members. All you need to do is set the time and date of the message delivery using the crontab.

A crontab is the file where cron settings are found. It contains the following fields: commands, minutes, hours, days, months, and weekdays. You can fill these fields with the information that will suit your needs or preferences. In case one option is not applicable like the minutes field, place an asterisk (*) instead.

The actual crontab is presented through a text file that will require you to write complex codes or syntax. However, just to bring convenience to their customers, most web hosting providers offer a user-friendly version of a crontab. It's now in the form of a web control panel that is fairly easy to configure.

It's already mentioned that cronjobs can only be used on web servers, which run on Unix or Linux. So, if your operating system is Windows, there's no way you can use cronjobs. However, Windows has its own version of this tool known as the Task Scheduler.

About the Author:
Max Adams is the owner of http://webhosting.infospotters.com/ - If you are aiming for a topnotch hosting deal that won't compromise value for your money, check out our reviews. We are here to be your independent source of honest and unbiased reviews of all hosting companies and their products and services.