Given that cron is not installed by default on a Fedora Silverblue host, it can either be added as a layered package or you can use systemd which is available by default.

As I want to keep layered packages to bare minimum, I have chose to utilise systemd to configure any scheduled tasks I may need.

Systemd requires minimum of 2 files to schedule task:

  • a service unit
  • and a timer unit
  • and optionally a script if command to run is not so simple

Files should be placed in ~/.config/systemd/user directory, which may not exist yet. If need be, create it with:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user

As an example - I wanted to have the Traefik container that I setup previously as the proxy for my local development environment, to be started automatically.

# schedule-traefik.service
[Unit]
Description=Run script to start Traefik container

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=%h/bin/schedule-traefik.sh
RemainAfterExit=true

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

# schedule-traefik.timer
[Unit]
Description=Schedule timer to start Traefik container

[Timer]
#Run 60 seconds after boot for the first time
OnBootSec=60

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

# bin/schedule-traefik.sh
#!/bin/sh
cd $HOME/development/podman-traefik-dev-box/ && $HOME/.local/bin/ansible-playbook play.yaml

Once the .service and .timer unit files are in place, the service can be enabled with:

systemctl --user enable schedule-traefik.service

and manually tested with:

systemctl --user start schedule-traefik.service

Also check the output and that the container is running:

journalctl --user -fxeu schedule-traefik.service

podman ps -a

Reboot and check again. Container should be up and running as expected.