Easy Way To Schedule And Automate Tasks In Ubuntu

Gnome-schedule is an application that provides an easy way for anyone to schedule (and automate) tasks on their computers. It provides a simple graphical user interface that uses cron and at command to manage the crontab file. Be it scheduling a recurrent task or task that happens only once, Gnome-schedule has no problem in handling it.

Some of the useful features found in Gnome-schedule include:

• Custom titles and icons for your tasks so that they can be organized and managed more easily.
• Templates support so that you won’t have to create the same task again and again
• An Advanced mode for crontab experts
• A calendar for you to choose the day you want a task to be executed
• Easy dropdown selection of the date and time (so that you don’t have to learn the “0 * * *” crontab instruction
• If run as root, you can edit any user’s crontab and “at” tasks, and also run tasks that require root permission.

Installing Gnome-schedule

Gnome-schedule is already included in the Ubuntu repository. To install, simply run the command

sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule

Once installed, go to System -> Preferences -> Scheduled tasks. This will open Gnome-schedule configuration window.

To create a new task, select New. Choose whether it is a recurrent or a one-time task.

For one-time task, enter the task’s description, date and time of execution and the execution command.

Click Add to add the task to the crontab, or Add as template for future reference.

For recurrent task, enter the description, command and the frequency of execution. The Advanced option allows you to edit the execution frequency in greater details.

(Advanced mode)

To create template tasks, click Templates, followed by New.Select between a recurrent or one-time task and enter the description and command.

To run Gnome-schedule as root, simply type

gksu gnome-schedule

In the configuration window, you can now see a new option “Change User“. Clicking on it will allow you to modify other user’s crontab and at task.

Tags: Gnome-schedule, Linux, Ubuntu