systemd timers

“ideally you'd ditch the cron and use the ubiquitous tool”

“Simple cases are simpler to represent in systemd because fields are optional in various circumstances”

“complex things are -if they're possible at all- at least as complex as they are everywhere else.”

“Calendar timers are integrated with systemd which streamlines administration.”

“you need to create 3 files instead of one line in crontab”

“I agree that's a good list. You did a better job than the article.”

“Systemd enables cleaner, simpler syntax for common cases.”

“Because you can test if systemctl start foo.service works and if it does, you know it'll work when foo.timer triggers it.”

“Systemd addresses many of those shortcomings”

“Systemd timers address real shortcomings of cron.”

“I can sort of guess the meaning without documentation.”

“If there is a feature that justifies using a completely different tool it's obviously this one.”

“they're pretty useful, especially after you get an LLM to write all the boilerplate for you”

“systemctl list-timers is orders of magnitude better than trying to wade through /etc/crontab”

“I found the systemd time spec syntax you referenced to be logical and well thought out.”

“cron looks to be soo straightforward and easier to use than this”

“it can also suddenly stop firing once it has fired on a February 29th and then never fire again”

“it looks like systemd's syntax when you want to specify something that's not just that one number is at least as complex.”

“now, they aren't just at feature parity, they surpassed plain old cron”

“Still easier to read than advanced cron magic.”

“The software in the Systemd Project only runs on Linux, so "it's not portable" is a really bad counterargument”

“the ability to easily know when the program last ran and what its exit code and stderr output were”

“It is also easier to debug as every job gets its own log”

“dead simple things look dead simple, but complex things are -if they're possible at all- at least as complex as they are everywhere else”

“In systemd it's just RandomizedOffsetSec=30m and it is "stable"”

“it is still more intuitive to me than the systemd unit file syntax and usage”

“the nice thing about timers is that all settings are self contained and not affected by previous entries”

“The ease and convenience of monitoring and troubleshooting alone are worth switching over.”

“until they fuck you over in an entirely inscrutable way”

“The systemd approach just maps more cleanly to my mental model of "how things should work"”

“You're not relying on the time zone to which the server was set (like with cron) but can explicitly specify a time zone”

“timer lets you specify when you want to run your service exactly”

“The integration with journalctl, especially in a newer OS like Debian 13 where syslog is gone, is really nice.”

“timers are up there in terms of being the clunkiest systemd unit type to use on a regular basis”

“timers solve all these problems (and more.)”

“If the schedule is missed (due to sleep, power off etc.) it runs it at the next earliest opportunity.”

“I can manage relationships and prevent duplicate runs.”

“A number of people mention locking, and AFAIK that's not an issue with timers.”

“I think it has a lot of advantages that make it worth it”

“Systemd timers have numerous nice properties compared to cron.”