reboot ubuntu 14 server via cron

Question

For whatever my reasons, I want to restart my Ubuntu server every 6 hours via cronjob. I added a cronjob in crontab -e being the following:

* */6 * * * root /sbin/shutdown -r now

however I just checked my uptime and it's 10+ hours.

Any ideas?

Try to remove the root. If you are editing cronjob with crontab -e as root , you don't have to specify it — P0pR0cK5, Jun 23 '17 at 13:18
@Dan For whatever your reasons are, restarting separate services is much better approach — Anubioz, Jun 23 '17 at 13:41

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 23 '17 at 13:39

3

Full reboots are not recommended like this. I think you are already aware of this so here's an answer to your question.

I suspect that your problem is that the contrab -e command is designed for a user to add their own cron scripts. It's not generally used for adding system (root) cron entries.

I believe you would be better to manually add a file in /etc/crontab.d/ or even add an entry in /etc/crontab.

answered Jun 23 '17 at 13:39

Philip Couling

1,791

2

/etc/crontab might get overwritten on system upgrades, so a files in /etc/crontab.d is a better choice. – Tero Kilkanen Jun 23 '17 at 16:34

reboot ubuntu 14 server via cron

1 Answers1