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Show system-wide cron jobs in /etc/crontab and /etc/cron.d

harmlessCrondebian, ubuntu
user@server
grep -vE '^\s*(#|$)' /etc/crontab /etc/cron.d/*

Prints all lines except comments and blank lines and prefixes each with the file name. These jobs do not show up in crontab -l because they belong to the system rather than to a user. Unlike in user crontabs, the schedule here is followed by the user the command runs as.

Note: Files in /etc/cron.d/ are ignored if their name contains a dot. A file named backup.sh or job.conf never runs there.

Also searched as

  • show cron jobs in cron.d
  • find system wide cron jobs
  • what is in etc crontab
  • cron jobs not shown by crontab -l

Related one-liners

All in Cron

Add a cron job that logs its output

$(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-cron.php >> /var/www/vhosts/example.com/logs/wp-cron.log 2>&1") | crontab -
cautionCron

Check which scripts in cron.daily actually run

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

Find out which cron job runs a command

#grep -rn "wp-cron.php" /etc/crontab /etc/cron.d /etc/cron.hourly /etc/cron.daily /etc/cron.weekly /etc/cron.monthly /var/spool/cron/crontabs 2>/dev/null
harmlessCron

Prevent overlapping cron jobs with flock

$flock -n /tmp/backup.lock /usr/local/bin/backup.sh
harmlessCron

Run all scripts in cron.daily right now

#run-parts --verbose /etc/cron.daily
cautionCron

Show currently running cron jobs

$ps -eo pid,user,etime,cmd --forest | grep -A3 '[C]RON'
harmlessCron

Read first, then run.

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