Cron Schedule Reference

Cron: First Monday of Every Month

Run a cron job on the first Monday of each month.

0 0 1-7 * 1

First Monday of Every Month

Expression Breakdown

Minute

Hour

1-7

Day

1-7

Month

Every month

Weekday

Usage in Crontab

Add this line to your crontab (crontab -e):

# First Monday of Every Month
0 0 1-7 * 1 /path/to/your/script.sh

With CronPing Monitoring

Add a curl ping to get alerted if your job fails or runs late:

# First Monday of Every Month — with CronPing dead man's switch
0 0 1-7 * 1 /path/to/your/script.sh && curl -s https://cronping.anethoth.com/ping/YOUR_TOKEN

Common Use Cases

Database Backups

Automate pg_dump or mysqldump on this schedule

Cache Warming

Pre-compute expensive queries or API responses

Report Generation

Generate and email analytics reports

Health Checks

Ping endpoints and check service availability

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does 0 0 1-7 * 1 mean in cron?

Run a cron job on the first Monday of each month. This expression follows the standard 5-field cron syntax: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week.

How do I add this to my crontab?

Run crontab -e in your terminal and add: 0 0 1-7 * 1 /path/to/your/command. Save and exit. Use crontab -l to verify.

How do I know if my cron job actually ran?

Check /var/log/syslog or /var/log/cron for execution logs. For reliable monitoring, use CronPing — it alerts you when a job misses its expected schedule.

What timezone does cron use?

Cron uses the system timezone by default. Check with timedatectl or set TZ=UTC in your crontab for consistency across servers.