diff --git a/.circleci/config.yml b/.circleci/config.yml
index c22dbf93..5ba48f3a 100644
--- a/.circleci/config.yml
+++ b/.circleci/config.yml
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ jobs:
           name: "Load Cache: CRLs"
           keys:
             - disa-crls-v2
-      - run: 
+      - run:
           name: "Update CRLs"
           command: ./script/sync-crls
       - save_cache:
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@ jobs:
               --change="ENV APP_GROUP \"${APP_GROUP}\"" \
               --change="ENV APP_DIR \"${APP_DIR}\"" \
               --change='ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/bin/dumb-init", "--"]' \
-              --change="CMD [\"bash\", \"-c\", \"${APP_DIR}/script/uwsgi_server\"]" \
+              --change="CMD [\"bash\", \"-c\", \"crond -b && ${APP_DIR}/script/uwsgi_server\"]" \
               --change="WORKDIR ${APP_DIR}" \
               --change="USER \"${APP_USER}\"" \
               ${CONTAINER_NAME} \
diff --git a/script/alpine_setup b/script/alpine_setup
index 41096326..a06b5694 100755
--- a/script/alpine_setup
+++ b/script/alpine_setup
@@ -12,5 +12,8 @@ APP_UID="8010"
 # Add additional packages required by app dependencies
 ADDITIONAL_PACKAGES="postgresql-libs python3 rsync uwsgi uwsgi-python3"
 
+# add sync-crl cronjob for atst user
+echo "1 */6 * * * /opt/atat/atst/script/sync-crls tests/crl-tmp" >> /etc/crontabs/atst
+
 # Run the shared alpine setup script
 source ./script/include/run_alpine_setup
diff --git a/script/sync-crls b/script/sync-crls
index a8a3ff97..3b4eb027 100755
--- a/script/sync-crls
+++ b/script/sync-crls
@@ -4,11 +4,17 @@
 set -e
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."
 
-mkdir -p crl-tmp
-pipenv run python ./atst/domain/authnid/crl/util.py crl-tmp crl
+if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then
+  TMP_DIR=crl-tmp
+else
+  TMP_DIR=$1
+fi
+
+mkdir -p $TMP_DIR
+pipenv run python ./atst/domain/authnid/crl/util.py $TMP_DIR crl
 mkdir -p crl
-rsync -rq --min-size 400 crl-tmp/. crl/.
-rm -rf crl-tmp
+rsync -rq --min-size 400 $TMP_DIR/. crl/.
+rm -rf $TMP_DIR
 
 if [[ $FLASK_ENV != "prod" ]]; then
   # place our test CRL there