Testing /etc/crontab

Crontab contents

The commands listed in /etc/crontab are:

• Commands executed daily through anacron, stored in /etc/cron.daily
• Weekly commands in /etc/cron.weekly
• There are currently no monthly commands
• The Backupscript, which is executed daily, but is not in /etc/cron.daily
• A direct call to the reboot command, executed weekly
• Scripts used by the Fedora media management application, which is probably used by the Key to Nature project (see documentation here: http://biowikifarm.net/meta/Definition_specs_for_Fedora_Ingestion_Service)

Testing the cron scripts

/etc/crontab can be tested using the run-parts command

To list the commands that would have been run daily:

run-parts --list /etc/cron.daily

To test (without executing them) the commands that would have been run daily:

run-parts --test /etc/cron.daily

To run the commands that would have been run daily, with verbose output:

run-parts -v /etc/cron.daily

Weekly and Monthly commands can be tested the same way.

Testing other scripts called in crontab

Backupscripts other commands not in /etc/cron.xxx have to be tested by hand. Please make sure that you are using the corresponding user account and have set any environment variables required.

Current status

21 November 2014

Logrotate is not functioning correctly.