/etc/crontab file not executed

Question

I created a dummy entry in /etc/crontab, but it doesn't get executed according to cron log /var/log/cron:

Feb  7 08:20:01 localhost CROND[22781]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)
Feb  7 08:30:01 localhost CROND[23132]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)
Feb  7 08:40:01 localhost CROND[23137]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)
Feb  7 08:50:01 localhost CROND[23147]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)
Feb  7 09:00:01 localhost CROND[23922]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)
Feb  7 09:01:01 localhost CROND[23977]: (root) CMD (run-parts /etc/cron.hourly)
Feb  7 09:01:01 localhost run-parts(/etc/cron.hourly)[23977]: starting 0anacron
Feb  7 09:01:01 localhost run-parts(/etc/cron.hourly)[23986]: finished 0anacron
Feb  7 09:10:01 localhost CROND[24264]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)
Feb  7 09:20:01 localhost CROND[24295]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib64/sa/sa1 1 1)

/etc/crontab

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/

# For details see man 4 crontabs

# Example of job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# |  |  |  |  |
# *  *  *  *  * user-name command to be executed

05 20 * * * root /data/CENTRAL_BACKUP/xxx.sh

the OS is centos

what are the permissions on the script? also did you manually edit /etc/crontab or did you use the crontab -e command? — Gravy, Feb 13 '15 at 06:07
Very likely is crontab newline problem. Add empty line at the end. http://serverfault.com/a/230407/41072 — titus, Feb 13 '15 at 09:26
Your definition says to run it at 20:05; your logs do not cover that period. What time did you expect it to run at? — Craig Miskell, Feb 13 '15 at 04:53
that's the end of the cron log, it means that nothing is logged to it since Feb 7th. — user12145, Feb 13 '15 at 05:25

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 13 '15 at 18:59

Have you tried turning the service off then back on again? I came across a similar issue not too long ago configuring a backup script for our wiki server. You have to restart the service to get it to load the new configuration, so if you haven't already, try that.

service cron restart

or

/etc/init.d/cron restart

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 17 '15 at 01:17

0

it turned out that my system was messed up by selinux because I symlinked /var to another parition and selinux has permission issue with it. I had to grant permission 777 to the symlink /var(not the data). and then everything works.

answered Feb 17 '15 at 01:17

user12145

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/etc/crontab file not executed

2 Answers2