You can use the at command to schedule a one-time task to run at a
specified time, or the batch command to schedule a one-time task to run
when the system load average drops below 0.8. The atd
service must be
running to use at or batch.
# service atd status
atd (pid 2078) is running...
at takes a time as its argument and reads the commands to be run from
the standard input. For example, run the commands in the file atjob
in 20
minutes time:
# at now + 20 minutes < ./atjob
job 1 at 2013-03-19 11:25
The atq command shows the at jobs that are queued to run:
# atq
1 2013-03-19 11:25 a root
The batch command also reads command from the standard input, but it does not run until the system load average drops below 0.8. For example:
# batch < batchjob
job 2 at 2013-03-19 11:31
To cancel one or more queued jobs, specify their job numbers to the atrm command, for example:
# atrm 1 2
For more information, see the at(1)
manual page.