Question

How to check if cron is working on Ubuntu 20.04?

Posted on May 18, 2021
Ubuntu 20.04
Asked by Shinichi Okada

I am trying to test a cron job.

When I run crontab -l the output is:

*/1 * * * * curl https://www.google.com >> /home/log/crontest.log 2>&1

I also have the following to set cron log in the /etc/rsyslog.d/50-default.conf:

cron.*	/var/log/cron.log

And created a file /var/log/cron.log and /home/log/crontest.log.

I restarted the system, sudo service rsyslog restart.

But nothing is logged.

Q1. Is there any way that I can test if the corn is working? Q2. What could be the reasons that the cronjob is not working?

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alexdo

Site Moderator

• May 18, 2021

Accepted Answer

Hello, @okadashinichi2819

You can manually execute the cron job command in your shell and check for any errors. If the cron is executed fine then it should work when configured to run at specific times.

You can also check our tutorial on how to setup cron jobs:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-cron-to-automate-tasks-ubuntu-1804

You can also use sites like this one to generate the exact time format for you: