This, so much this. Separating the schedule from the process might be an annoyance to newcomers... But I promise it's worth it It's two files to template inst

This, so much this. Separating the schedule from the process might be an annoyance to newcomers... But I promise it's worth it It's two files to template instead of one line, but it fixes essentially every lesson we all learned with cron. $PATH being incomplete, locking, etc Another nice benefit is dependency handling. If your 'cron job' requires networking you have to write boilerplate code or let it fire/fail endlessly. Pray the processes don't linger/stack or otherwise make a mess. If a timer needs networking, set After= and Requires= to networking.target or whatever is appropriate for your distribution - and you're golden. Even better if the job acts against another actual systemd service. Using systemd-networkd you can tie the timers to specific interfaces. [but this handles NAT weirder than you're probably used to, if a host acts as a router prepare to adjust]