Scheduling tasks with systemd timers

Flatcar Container Linux uses systemd timers (cron replacement) to schedule tasks. Here we will show you how you can schedule a periodic job.

Let’s create an alternative for this crontab job:

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/date >> /tmp/date

Timers work directly with services' units. So we have to create /etc/systemd/system/date.service first:

[Unit]
Description=Prints date into /tmp/date file

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/date >> /tmp/date'

Then we have to create timer unit with the same name but with *.timer suffix /etc/systemd/system/date.timer:

[Unit]
Description=Run date.service every 10 minutes

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*:0/10

This config will run date.service every 10 minutes. You can also list all timers enabled in your system using systemctl list-timers command or systemctl list-timers --all to list all timers. Run systemctl start date.timer to enable timer.

You can also create timer with different name, i.e. task.timer. In this case you have specify service unit name:

Unit=date.service

Butane Config

Here you’ll find an example Butane Config demonstrating how to install systemd timers:

variant: flatcar
version: 1.0.0
systemd:
  units:
    - name: date.service
      contents: |
        [Unit]
        Description=Prints date into /tmp/date file

        [Service]
        Type=oneshot
        ExecStart=/usr/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/date >> /tmp/date'        
    - name: date.timer
      enabled: true
      contents: |
        [Unit]
        Description=Run date.service every 10 minutes

        [Timer]
        OnCalendar=*:0/10

        [Install]
        WantedBy=multi-user.target

Scheduling tasks with systemd timers

Butane Config

Further reading