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Systemd timers or classic cron?
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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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Also a cron guy, but systemd timers can do things like run at a preset time after start up if a schedule was missed due to power off or system suspension, and you can get more information about a failed timer with journalctl. Arch wiki has lots of good info. Still, I'm a cron guy. 🤷♂️ Set in my ways
You can do the same with cron btw depending on the OS(?). At least on debian systems. I think its
@poweroffor@rebootif I recall correctly.It’s more than just power state, you can also toggle based on the state of other units (which you could chain normally too, but not time based) so you could start a service 10 minutes after another service has ran to completion, or after it’s died, etc.
This is the only case in which I use timers, really, when I want something to run on startup, every once in a while, but only after it's confirmed that the internet is up.
Are you unaware of anacron?