The Linux Daily

Set an “Alarm Clock” for a Program to Run at a Certain Time

If you ever have the need to setup a program to run at a certain time, then the at is the command for you. Here’s the standard blurb from the man pages explaining what it is:

       at and batch read commands from standard  input	or  a  specified  file
       which are to be executed at a later time, using /bin/sh.

       at      executes commands at a specified time.

       atq     lists  the  user's  pending  jobs, unless the user is the supe-
	       ruser; in that case, everybody's jobs are listed.   The	format
	       of  the	output	lines (one for each job) is: Job number, date,
	       hour, queue, and username.

       atrm    deletes jobs, identified by their job number.

Now, I won’t reinvent the wheel on how to utilize the command. Instead, I’ll simply point you to this reference over at nixcraft (cyberciti.biz). Have fun!