Cron schedule examples (a copy-paste cheat sheet)

Cron’s five-field schedule trips everyone up at first. Here’s how to read it and a set of ready-to-paste schedules. New to cron? Start with cron jobs explained.

The five fields

┌───────────── minute        (0–59)
│ ┌─────────── hour          (0–23)
│ │ ┌───────── day of month  (1–31)
│ │ │ ┌─────── month         (1–12)
│ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week   (0–7, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *   command to run

* = “every”. */5 = “every 5”. 1,15 = “at 1 and 15”. 9-17 = “9 through 17”.

Ready-to-use schedules

Schedule	When it runs
* * * * *	every minute
*/5 * * * *	every 5 minutes
*/15 * * * *	every 15 minutes
0 * * * *	every hour (on the hour)
0 */6 * * *	every 6 hours
0 2 * * *	daily at 02:00
30 3 * * *	daily at 03:30
0 0 * * 0	weekly, Sunday midnight
0 4 * * 1	weekly, Monday 04:00
0 0 1 * *	monthly, 1st at midnight
0 9 1 1 *	yearly, Jan 1 at 09:00
0 9-17 * * 1-5	hourly, 9–17, weekdays only

Tips that save headaches

• Use full paths. Cron runs from your home directory, not your project folder, so write php /home/orbix-you/example.com/cron.php, not php cron.php.
• Pick off-peak times for heavy jobs (backups, reports) — 2–5 a.m. is quiet.
• Stagger jobs so a dozen don’t all fire at 0 0 * * * and spike the server.
• Log the output to see it worked: append >> /home/orbix-you/cron.log 2>&1.

On OrbixPanel

Add jobs in the panel’s Cron section — pick a schedule and enter the command. See cron jobs (tenant). For a framework scheduler, see run the Laravel scheduler.

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Running OrbixPanel? Add and manage cron jobs from the panel — no crontab editing. OrbixPanel.com → — the free, self-hosted, AI-powered hosting control panel.