Cron: Every Hour, 9am-5pm, Weekdays
To run a cron job once an hour only during business hours, use 0 9-17 * * 1-5. The range 9-17 in the hour field fires at the top of every hour from 9am to 5pm, and 1-5 keeps it on weekdays.
The expression
0 9-17 * * 1-5 runs every hour during business hours. Copy it straight into your crontab with crontab -e.
A range in the hour field
0 9-17 * * 1-5 runs at 09:00, 10:00 … 17:00 — nine runs — Monday-Friday. Unlike a step, a plain range hits every hour in the window. Use 9-16 to stop the last run at 16:00.
Why 1-5 means Monday to Friday
The fifth field is day-of-week: 0 (or 7) is Sunday, 1 is Monday, up to 6 Saturday. The range 1-5 is Monday through Friday, so the job skips weekends automatically.
FAQ
What is the cron expression to run every hour during business hours?
0 9-17 * * 1-5 — read it field by field: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week.
How do I limit a cron job to Monday-Friday?
Set the fifth field (day-of-week) to 1-5. 0 and 7 are Sunday, 6 is Saturday, so 1-5 is Monday through Friday and weekends are skipped.
Does cron count hours in 24-hour time?
Yes. The hour field is 0-23, where 0 is midnight, 12 is noon and 17 is 5 PM. There is no AM/PM in cron.