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Hello I just setup a ubuntu server running samba and I want it to shut down every night at 11PM.

This is what's in my crontab I'm using this command in crontab 30 9 * * * root shutdown -h now

Cron tab does seem to be on but its not running the command at the desired time.

Thanks in advance!

Paperboypaddy
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  • You have to use cron, check out my link... – Ravexina Aug 14 '18 at 01:10
  • @Ravexina Your duplicate is better! :) – WinEunuuchs2Unix Aug 14 '18 at 01:11
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    Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Could you please add a little more detail? "It doesn't work" doesn't help a bit in the diagnosis of the issue at hand. What exactly did you do, what did you expect to happen and what happened instead? Did you encounter any warning or error messages? Please reproduce them in their entirety in your question. You can select, copy and paste terminal content and most dialogue messages in Ubuntu. Please [edit] your post to add information instead of posting a comment. (see How do I ask a good question?) – David Foerster Aug 14 '18 at 06:23

1 Answers1

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Edit the system crontab:

sudo vi /etc/crontab

Add the following line to the bottom of the file:

0   23   *   *   *    root     shutdown -h now

Save the file (ZZ in vi). That should run the command "shutdown -h now" every night at 23:00.

user859714
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  • I tried that now but it doesn't work? – Paperboypaddy Aug 14 '18 at 04:31
  • I used this code '0 23 * * * * root shutdown -h now' and it doesn't shutdown when it becomes that time. – Paperboypaddy Aug 14 '18 at 05:06
  • I think there should be one less . Also, perhaps "root" isn't required. Maybe something like this: 0 23 * * shutdown -h now . Type "man 5 crontab" to see the format. – Ray Aug 14 '18 at 05:39
  • There are 5 time columns: min, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of week. So Ray is right, it should be "0 23 * * * root shutdown -h now". "root" is needed in /etc/crontab to specify the user running the command. In the user's crontab, no 'user' column is present. I have edited the answer to reflect Ray's correction. – user859714 Aug 16 '18 at 21:31
  • @Paperboypaddy maybe you are missing a newline character at the end of file? According to man, it will cause to cron demon consider the file broken. – user244413 Jul 09 '19 at 19:02