lk/basics/at.md

title	tags
at	Documentation Basics

Install with:

sudo apt install at

Enable the daemon service with:

sudo systemctl enable --now atd

Then jobs can be specified with absolute time, such as:

at 16:20

at noon

at midnight

at teatime

Type in your command, e.g.:

touch /tmp/myFile.txt

The jobs can also be specified relative to the current time:

at now +15 minutes

Finally, accept the jobs with ^D.

Managing at Jobs

Display a list of commands to run with:

atq

2 Sat Oct 20 16:00:00 2018 a roach-1

This will print all pending IDs. Remove a job by the ID with:

atrm 2

Check /var/spool/atd/

Automation

Automatically add a job for later, by setting the date, then using echo for the command.

t="$(date -d "2 minutes" +%R)"

echo "fortune > ~/file" | at "$t"

watch cat file

The $t here outputs the day in minutes, but you could also do t="$(date -d "2 days" +%m/%d/%Y)".