Edit crontab file with vi

How to Deny Access to the at Command. Managing System Crash Information Tasks. Managing Core Files Tasks. Troubleshooting System and Software Problems Tasks. The simplest way to create a crontab file is to use the crontab -e command. This command invokes the text editor that has been set for your system environment. If this variable has not been set, the crontab command uses the default editor, ed.

Preferably, you should choose an editor that you know well. The following example shows how to determine if an editor has been defined, and how to set up vi as the default. You can create or edit a crontab file for another user, or root , if you have superuser privileges. If you are creating or editing a crontab file that belongs to root or another user you must become root. You can create your own crontab file without superuser privileges, but you must have superuser privileges to creating or edit a crontab file for root or another user.

Caution - If you accidentally type the crontab command with no option, press the interrupt character for your editor. This character allows you to quit without saving changes. If you instead saved changes and exited the file, the existing crontab file would be overwritten with an empty file. Follow the syntax described in Syntax of crontab File Entries.

The following command entry added to a new crontab file automatically removes any log files from the user's home directory at a. Doing so ensures that the command executes properly. Verify the contents of user's crontab file by using the crontab -l command as described in How to Display a crontab File. Search Scope:. Document Information About This Book 1.

Managing User Accounts and Groups Overview 3. Managing User Accounts and Groups Tasks 4. Merge lines. Insert a new line under the current one.

Insert data from the memory buffer at the cursor position. Quit the editor without saving the text. Write the changes to the file and quit the editor. Switch to input mode, in order to add and edit text. Cron allows Linux and Unix users to run commands or scripts at a given date and time. You can schedule scripts to be executed periodically. Also see CRON script. For example, if I want to change the default editor to vim, I would just hit the number 1.

You can test this out by typing in crontab -e to edit your cron file. Esc will only throw you back into command mode in VI or Vim. If you are opening the file in read only mode you will have to hit :q! If you are new to Linux I would suggest using something other than vi. A cron job is the scheduled task itself.

Cron jobs can be very useful to automate repetitive tasks. Scripts executed as a cron job are typically used to modify files or databases. Changing default editor for crontab from nano to vim.