systemd-crontab-generator — translate cron schedules in systemd Units
Contents
Description
systemd-crontab-generator is a systemd.generator(7) translating classic cron “FILES” into native systemd.timer(5)/systemd.service(5) pairs. It runs automatically • during early boot, • a second time by cron-after-var.service if /var is a separate mount-point, in order to process user crontabs in /var/spool/cron/crontabs, • after each update to /etc/crontab† and /etc/anacrontab†, and • when packages add files under /etc/cron.d† (†: monitored by cron-update.path).
Diagnostics
systemctllist-timers shows an overview of current timers and when they'll elapse.
If you see something to the effect of
/usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generatorfailedwitherrorcode1.
in the journal, you can run /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generator/tmp/test for
more verbose output.
Files
/etc/crontab Administrator's system crontab, see crontab(5). /etc/cron.d System crontabs managed by packages live here. /etc/anacrontabanacrontab(5) /var/spool/cron/crontabs Users' crontabs live here. /run/systemd/generator Automatically generated units go here. /run/crond.reboot If this file exists, @reboot jobs aren't re-generated. Managed automatically. /var/lib/systemd/timerssystemd.timer(5)s with the Persistent flag set store their timestamps here.
Name
systemd-crontab-generator — translate cron schedules in systemd Units
See Also
crontab(5), systemd.unit(5), systemd.timer(5), systemd.cron(7) systemd-cron 2.5.1-2 2023-08-13 SYSTEMD-CRONTAB-GENERATOR(8)
Synopsis
/usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generatoroutput-dir
