For anyone with a Cron Jobs page
Know when every job rings.
Paste the scheduled jobs from your hosting account. Chore Bell says what each line means, lists exactly when it runs in your server's time zone, flags what will go wrong, and hands back a corrected crontab.
The example crontab on a 24-hour dial, midnight at the top. Worked out, not drawn by hand.
- Job 1Every 15 minutes every day
- Job 2At 02:00 every day
- Job 3At 06:30 on day 1 of the month and also every Monday (either day is enough)
Ring any crontab free. Bell Pass $1.95/month or $19.50/year for a 25-schedule Bell Book, 100 lines a check, calendars and CSV. Free during preview. See what each plan does
Before and after
Three ordinary lines. 7 things worth fixing before cron runs them.
You paste
# WordPress tasks (wp-cron turned off) */15 * * * * php /home/USER/public_html/wp-cron.php # nightly database copy 0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/mysqldump mydb > /home/USER/backups/db-$(date +%F).sql # weekly report on Mondays and the 1st 30 6 1 * 1 /home/USER/bin/report.sh
The Bell hands back
# Checked by Chore Bell (hillbillyhosting.us) for the time zone America/New_York. # WordPress tasks (wp-cron turned off) # Job 1: Every 15 minutes every day. */15 * * * * php /home/USER/public_html/wp-cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1 # nightly database copy # Job 2: At 02:00 every day. 0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/mysqldump mydb > /home/USER/backups/db-$(date +\%F).sql # weekly report on Mondays and the 1st # Job 3: At 06:30 on day 1 of the month and also every Monday (either day is enough). 30 6 1 * 1 /home/USER/bin/report.sh >/dev/null 2>&1
- R8Job 1It starts "php" by name. Cron runs with a short PATH (usually /usr/bin:/bin), so it may find a different php than your site uses, or none. Use the full path your host gives (on cPanel, for example /usr/local/bin/php, or /opt/cpanel/ea-php83/root/usr/bin/php for one PHP version).
- R9Job 1Its output is not redirected, so anything it prints is emailed every run (to the crontab owner; on cPanel, the address on the Cron Jobs page). The corrected crontab adds a redirection.
- R12Job 1On 2027-03-14 clocks in America/New_York jump from 02:00 to 03:00, so 02:00, 02:15, 02:30 and 02:45 do not happen. Its minute or hour field begins with *, so Vixie cron and cronie schedule it normally: the runs in the skipped hour do not happen.
- R7Job 2The command has a "%" that is not escaped. Cron turns an unescaped % into a new line and passes the rest as input, so commands like date +%F break. The corrected crontab writes \%.
- R12Job 2On 2027-03-14 clocks in America/New_York jump from 02:00 to 03:00, so 02:00 does not happen. Vixie cron and cronie run a fixed-time job like this one right after the jump; other schedulers may skip it.
- R4Job 3Both day fields are set ("1" and "1"), so cron runs it on EITHER: every day 1 of the month AND every Monday. To mean "both at once" there is no cron field; run on the weekday and test the date in the command.
- R9Job 3Its output is not redirected, so anything it prints is emailed every run (to the crontab owner; on cPanel, the address on the Cron Jobs page). The corrected crontab adds a redirection.
What it listens for
Twelve checks, each one written down.
Every check comes from the cron manual pages, plain calendar arithmetic or common hosting practice, and the method page shows which. No guessing, no scores.
- R1Not Linux cron (six fields, Quartz ? L W #)
- R2Field errors, with the reason
- R3Lines that never run (30 February)
- R4Both day fields set: either day runs it
- R5Day 29, 30, 31 skips short months
- R6Steps without a range (5/10)
- R7An unescaped % in the command
- R8php, wp, node by name: cron's PATH is short
- R9Output emailed every run, or lost
- R10Every-minute jobs
- R11A new run starting before the last one ends
- R12Daylight Saving: skipped and doubled hours
Twice a year
The hour that never comes, and the hour that comes twice.
On a server set to a zone with Daylight Saving, one night a year skips an hour and one night repeats one. A backup set for 02:30 does not happen at 02:30 that night. The Bell finds every job that lands in those hours over the next twelve months and says what the cron on most Linux servers does about it.
Read rule R12- Sunday 14 March 2027 Clocks jump 02:00 to 03:00: that hour does not exist America/New_York
Free
$0
- Ring any crontab, 8 jobs at a time
- Next 10 runs of each job, in two zones
- All twelve checks and the corrected crontab
- A Bell Book with 1 saved schedule
Bell Pass
$1.95/month
or $19.50 a year (two months free)
- Bell Book of 25 schedules
- 100 jobs a check, next 50 runs each
- Calendar (.ics) of the next 30 days of runs
- CSV of run times, duplicate a schedule
Free during preview. Payments are not switched on yet, so every Bell Pass feature is open to everyone and nothing is charged.
See pricingPlain answers
Does Chore Bell connect to my server?
No. It reads only the text you paste. It cannot see what your host has scheduled, cannot run your jobs and never fetches anything. That is also why it works for any host.
Where do I find my crontab?
On cPanel, open Cron Jobs: each row there is one line (the five time fields and the command). On a server with a shell, crontab -l prints yours. Copy the lines and paste them here.
Which time zone is my cron in?
The server's own zone, unless the crontab sets CRON_TZ (read by cronie). In a terminal, date shows it; on shared hosting the host's help pages usually say. If you are not sure, ring it twice in two zones and compare.
What if my command has a password in it?
Better not to paste one. The Bell blanks anything that looks like a password, token or key before it shows or saves the line, but treat that as a safety net, not a promise.
Is Hillbilly Hosting a web host?
No. Hillbilly Hosting sells no hosting. Chore Bell is a checker for the jobs on hosting you already have, wherever it is.