Running Cron every 2 hours and 5 minutes

Question

I need create a cron job running every 2 hours and 5 minutes, is this possible? This doesn't work since is running each 5 minutes :(

user@server$ crontab -l
0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22 * * *  date >> /tmp/cron-test01.out
user@server$ cat /tmp/cron-test01.out
Mon Sep 19 10:05:00 GMT 2016
Mon Sep 19 10:10:00 GMT 2016
Mon Sep 19 10:15:00 GMT 2016
Mon Sep 19 10:20:00 GMT 2016
Mon Sep 19 10:25:00 GMT 2016
Mon Sep 19 10:30:00 GMT 2016
user@server$

Solution

cron does not naturally handle this kind of interval. You could try running a job every five minutes and adding a time check within the job to allow it to execute every 125 minutes:

*/5 * * * *    [ $(expr $(date +\%s) / 60 \% 125) -eq 0 ] && date >> /tmp/cron-test01.out

Comments

[Centimane]

Do you mean to run the command after every 2:05? Or Every 2:00 and every 0:05?

[Matej Vrzala M4]

If you need help with what to input your crontab, try looking at this link: crontab.guru

[Robert Fraser]

Could you run it every 125 minutes?

[sleepyweasel]

You don't note which version of Solaris. If you're using v11, you could look into using Periodic and scheduled services with SMF to see if that will better fit your requirements over using cron. blogs.oracle.com/gman/entry/…

[Pab]

I couldn't make it work pastebin.com/xFSwpQnU

[user4556274]

@PabloAngarano, my response works with bash and Vixie cron running on Linux. I don't have a solaris system to compare, but the same principal should work even if the syntax needs to be changed, for example, it may not be necessary to escape the % symbols.

[peterh]

I believe the */5 syntax is specific to Vixie cron, hence the reason why this won't work on Solaris. You need to do 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 instead. Yes, I know: cumbersome.