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I am using crontab to ring a bell in a specific time & date. Sometimes I need to set one schedule and sometimes the other. My plan is to create 2 different crontab files:
1.) The Original Crontab File. This crontab file will ring a bell in every 1 hr & 30mins from Mondays through Fridays.
2.) Another Crontab File with a different name which rings the bell in every 2 hrs from Mondays through Fidays.
How can I set which crontab file is to use and which one isn't?
Why do you need 2 different crontabs (it’s not possible on user level, only on system level in /etc/cron.d - there in separate files you can specify the user which runs the cron)? Simply make 2 lines in one crontab each with a different schedule. Or a different command/script to execute, which will check your condition and decide whether to run some commands or not.
See further discussion about maintaining separate files and installing them into your (one) crontab here: https://superuser.com/questions/391246/multiple-crontabs-for-one-user
Basically (pseudo-code) doing this:
if <something> cat file1 | crontab; else <something-else> cat file2 | crontab; fi
which anyways will have to run on a cron. So my previous suggestion is more elegant in that sense.
cat file1 | crontab and cat file2 | crontab
Nov 5, 2020 at 5:29
crontab file would load the given file as the crontab schedule, without the need for cat.