Cron Jobs

Cron Jobs

If you have ever wished something on your server would just happen automatically — cleaning up old files, running a maintenance script, rotating logs — cron jobs are the answer. Instead of logging in manually or relying on WordPress to handle system-level work, you set a schedule once and FlyWP handles the rest.

A cron job (named after the Unix time-based job scheduler) is a command that your server runs automatically at intervals you define — every hour, once a day, every Sunday at 3 AM, or any other pattern. You define the command and the schedule; the server takes care of the rest.

Overview

The Crons tab on your server’s detail page shows all server-level cron jobs you have configured. If no cron jobs have been added yet, you will see an empty state message: “No cron jobs found.”

Note

Server-level cron jobs are different from WordPress cron (WP-Cron, the built-in WordPress task scheduler used by plugins and themes). The cron jobs you configure here run at the operating system level and can execute any shell command — they are not limited to WordPress.

Tip

This feature is most useful for developers or site owners who need to run custom scripts, clean up files, or automate server maintenance. For typical WordPress scheduling tasks (like sending emails or running backups through a plugin), WP-Cron handles that automatically.

Adding a Cron Job

1. Navigate to your server’s detail page and click the Crons tab.
2. Click the Add Cron button.
3. Enter the command you want to run (e.g., /usr/bin/find /tmp -type f -mtime +7 -delete).
4. Set the schedule using cron syntax or a preset interval.
5. Click Save.

FlyWP registers the cron job on your server, and it will begin running at the next scheduled time.

Common Use Cases

Task	Example Command	Suggested Schedule
Clean up temp files	find /tmp -type f -mtime +7 -delete	Daily
Restart a service	docker restart nginx-proxy	Weekly
Run a custom script	/home/fly/scripts/backup-cleanup.sh	Daily
Clear application logs	truncate -s 0 /var/log/app/*.log	Weekly

Cron Schedule Syntax

Cron schedules use five fields representing minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. Each field accepts a number, a wildcard (* means “every”), or a range.

* * * * *
| | | | |
| | | | +-- Day of week (0-7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday)
| | | +---- Month (1-12)
| | +------ Day of month (1-31)
| +-------- Hour (0-23)
+---------- Minute (0-59)

Common examples:

Schedule	Cron Expression
Every minute	* * * * *
Every hour	0 * * * *
Every day at midnight	0 0 * * *
Every Sunday at 3:00 AM	0 3 * * 0
Every weekday at 9:00 AM	0 9 * * 1-5

Tip

Not sure about your cron expression? Use an online cron expression builder like crontab.guru to write and verify your schedule before adding it to FlyWP.

Managing Cron Jobs

Each cron job in the list gives you two actions:

• Edit — update the command or change the schedule at any time.
• Delete — remove the cron job entirely from the server.

Best Practices

• Test your commands manually via SSH (Secure Shell, a way to connect to your server from a terminal) before scheduling them, to confirm they work as expected before automating.
• Use absolute paths in your commands (e.g., /usr/bin/find instead of just find) to avoid PATH issues — the environment that runs cron jobs does not always have the same settings as your interactive shell.
• Stagger schedules — avoid scheduling multiple resource-intensive tasks at the same time to prevent overloading your server.
• Monitor your server resources on the Status tab after adding new cron jobs to confirm they are not causing unexpected load.

Related Pages

• Managing Services
• Server Status and Health
• Supervisor / Daemons
• Server Terminal