IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates
will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the
current release documentation.
Cron expressions
editCron expressions
editA cron expression is a string of the following form:
<seconds> <minutes> <hours> <day_of_month> <month> <day_of_week> [year]
Elasticsearch uses the cron parser from the Quartz Job Scheduler. For more information about writing Quartz cron expressions, see the Quartz CronTrigger Tutorial.
All schedule times are in coordinated universal time (UTC); other timezones are not supported.
You can use the elasticsearch-croneval command line tool to validate your cron expressions.
Cron expression elements
editAll elements are required except for year
.
See Cron special characters for information about the allowed special characters.
-
<seconds>
-
(Required)
Valid values:
0
-59
and the special characters,
-
*
/
-
<minutes>
-
(Required)
Valid values:
0
-59
and the special characters,
-
*
/
-
<hours>
-
(Required)
Valid values:
0
-23
and the special characters,
-
*
/
-
<day_of_month>
-
(Required)
Valid values:
1
-31
and the special characters,
-
*
/
?
L
W
-
<month>
-
(Required)
Valid values:
1
-12
,JAN
-DEC
,jan
-dec
, and the special characters,
-
*
/
-
<day_of_week>
-
(Required)
Valid values:
1
-7
,SUN
-SAT
,sun
-sat
, and the special characters,
-
*
/
?
L
#
-
<year>
-
(Optional)
Valid values:
1970
-2099
and the special characters,
-
*
/
Cron special characters
edit-
*
-
Selects every possible value for a field. For
example,
*
in thehours
field means "every hour". -
?
-
No specific value. Use when you don’t care what the value
is. For example, if you want the schedule to trigger on a
particular day of the month, but don’t care what day of
the week that happens to be, you can specify
?
in theday_of_week
field. -
-
-
A range of values (inclusive). Use to separate a minimum
and maximum value. For example, if you want the schedule
to trigger every hour between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., you
could specify
9-17
in thehours
field. -
,
-
Multiple values. Use to separate multiple values for a
field. For example, if you want the schedule to trigger
every Tuesday and Thursday, you could specify
TUE,THU
in theday_of_week
field. -
/
-
Increment. Use to separate values when specifying a time
increment. The first value represents the starting point,
and the second value represents the interval. For example,
if you want the schedule to trigger every 20 minutes
starting at the top of the hour, you could specify
0/20
in theminutes
field. Similarly, specifying1/5
inday_of_month
field will trigger every 5 days starting on the first day of the month. -
L
-
Last. Use in the
day_of_month
field to mean the last day of the month—day 31 for January, day 28 for February in non-leap years, day 30 for April, and so on. Use alone in theday_of_week
field in place of7
orSAT
, or after a particular day of the week to select the last day of that type in the month. For example6L
means the last Friday of the month. You can specifyLW
in theday_of_month
field to specify the last weekday of the month. Avoid using theL
option when specifying lists or ranges of values, as the results likely won’t be what you expect. -
W
-
Weekday. Use to specify the weekday (Monday-Friday) nearest
the given day. As an example, if you specify
15W
in theday_of_month
field and the 15th is a Saturday, the schedule will trigger on the 14th. If the 15th is a Sunday, the schedule will trigger on Monday the 16th. If the 15th is a Tuesday, the schedule will trigger on Tuesday the 15th. However if you specify1W
as the value forday_of_month
, and the 1st is a Saturday, the schedule will trigger on Monday the 3rd—it won’t jump over the month boundary. You can specifyLW
in theday_of_month
field to specify the last weekday of the month. You can only use theW
option when theday_of_month
is a single day—it is not valid when specifying a range or list of days. -
#
-
Nth XXX day in a month. Use in the
day_of_week
field to specify the nth XXX day of the month. For example, if you specify6#1
, the schedule will trigger on the first Friday of the month. Note that if you specify3#5
and there are not 5 Tuesdays in a particular month, the schedule won’t trigger that month.
Examples
editSetting daily triggers
edit-
0 5 9 * * ?
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC every day.
-
0 5 9 * * ? 2020
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC every day during the year 2020.
Restricting triggers to a range of days or times
edit-
0 5 9 ? * MON-FRI
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC Monday through Friday.
-
0 0-5 9 * * ?
- Trigger every minute starting at 9:00 a.m. UTC and ending at 9:05 a.m. UTC every day.
Setting interval triggers
edit-
0 0/15 9 * * ?
- Trigger every 15 minutes starting at 9:00 a.m. UTC and ending at 9:45 a.m. UTC every day.
-
0 5 9 1/3 * ?
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC every 3 days every month, starting on the first day of the month.
Setting schedules that trigger on a particular day
edit-
0 1 4 1 4 ?
- Trigger every April 1st at 4:01 a.m. UTC.
-
0 0,30 9 ? 4 WED
- Trigger at 9:00 a.m. UTC and at 9:30 a.m. UTC every Wednesday in the month of April.
-
0 5 9 15 * ?
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC on the 15th day of every month.
-
0 5 9 15W * ?
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC on the nearest weekday to the 15th of every month.
-
0 5 9 ? * 6#1
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC on the first Friday of every month.
Setting triggers using last
edit-
0 5 9 L * ?
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC on the last day of every month.
-
0 5 9 ? * 2L
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC on the last Monday of every month.
-
0 5 9 LW * ?
- Trigger at 9:05 a.m. UTC on the last weekday of every month.