How to install cron without shell editor

Let’s say you don’t have an editor setup to work with crontab on a chroot server and you want to install a cron job.

What you have to do is the following:

$ contab -l

This will print currently installed cron jobs

$ crontab -l > cron.txt

Put contents of the crontab in a file. You can edit this file using and ftp/scp program or by other simple editor available on the server.

When you are ready install the cron…

$ crontab < cron.txt

If no errors are printed, cron job is installed successfully.

Tags: crontab, linux, shell