Start cron job from 06:05 until 22:05 for every 15 minutes

I need to run a cron job every 15 minutes starting at 06:05 and ending at 22:05.

0 5/15 6-22 * * *

The following syntax includes 22:35 and 22:50.

Any idea how to achieve this? Is this possible with one line or do I need to configure multiple?

*/15 6-22 * * * /path/to/script

OR

5,20,35,50 6-22 * * *  /path/to/script

A field may be an asterisk (*), which always stands for "first-last". Ranges of numbers are allowed. Ranges are two numbers separated with a hyphen. The specified range is inclusive. For example, 8-11 for an "hours" entry specifies execution at hours 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Lists are allowed. A list is a set of numbers (or ranges) separated by commas. Examples: "1,2,5,9", "0-4,8-12".

Step values can be used in conjunction with ranges. Following a range with "" specifies skips of the number's value through the range. For example, "0-23/2" can be used in the hours field to specify command execution every other hour (the alternative in the V7 standard is "0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22"). Steps are also permitted after an asterisk, so if you want to say "every two hours", just use "*/2".

Names can also be used for the "month" and "day of week" fields. Use the first three letters of the particular day or month (case doesn't matter). Ranges or lists of names are not allowed.

The "sixth" field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run. The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or % character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the SHELL variable of the cronfile. Percent-signs (%) in the command, unless escaped with backslash (), will be changed into newline characters, and all data after the first % will be sent to the command as standard input.

Note: The day of a command's execution can be specified by two fields - day of month, and day of week. If both fields are restricted (ie, aren't *), the command will be run when either field matches the current time. For example, "30 4 1,15 * 5" would cause a command to be run at 4:30 am on the 1st and 15th of each month, plus every Friday.

I personally would split it in two lines:

5-50/15 6-21 * * * /path/to/script
5       22   * * * /path/to/script

First line to cover 0605-2150, second - for additional run at 2205.

If you really want one liner I would go for inexact check to accomodate possible inexact job start time:

5-50/15 6-22 * * * [[ $(date +"\%-H\%M") -le 2210 ]] && /path/to/script

It is possible with one cronline but only with tricks

SHELL=/bin/bash
5-50/15 6-22 * * * [[ '2220 2235 2250' =~ "$(date +\%H\%M)" ]] || /path/to/script

Or with sh (and bash)

SHELL=/bin/sh
5-50/15 6-22 * * * case "$(date +\%H\%M)" in 2220|2235|2250) ;; *) /path/to/script;;esac

Note the backslash escapes for percent (%) characters, needed for crontabs.

I'm a strong supporter of keeping things simple.

As you can see from the other answers making slightly more complex schedules with single cron entry is possible, but does result in cron entries that you need to look at twice to understand.

I would try to avoid that and do the following:

# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) 
# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) 
# |  |  |  |  |
# *  *  *  *  *  command to be executed

# run my_batch every 15 minutes starting at 06:05 and ending 22:05 (corner case) 

5/15 6-21 * * * my_batch
5    22   * * * my_batch

When your schedule is even more complex and unsuitable to declare in a simple cron schedule, my preferred solution is to build the logic into the batch job itself (or a shell wrapper around the batch job).

Then you have the full power of your preferred scripting language to test if all the conditions are right to execute the batch job, or you exit (with or without an error) when they are not

# run my_batch_wrapper every 15 minutes 

5/15 * * * * my_batch_wrapper

and in pseudo code my_batch_wrapper

   # do not run my_batch before  06:05 or after 22:05 

   if [ now() < 06:05 ] ; exit 0 

   if [ now() > 22:06 ] ; exit 0 

  
   /path/to/my_batch 

A little late, but in the interests of completeness, you can get a list of future run times for any cron expression at CronBuddy.com - an easy way to check out what's going to happen.