FreeBSD 12 – Common Problem 006 – cron Jobs Do Not Execute

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Backups, rotations, or maintenance tasks are skipped, causing drift and risk.

Environment & Reproduction

Host appears healthy, but expected cron-generated output is absent.

Root Cause Analysis

`cron` disabled in `rc.conf`, invalid crontab syntax, or missing executable paths.

Quick Triage

Check daemon status and logs.

service cron status
sysrc cron_enable
tail -n 50 /var/log/cron

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate crontab format and command paths.

crontab -l
crontab -l | crontab -
which sh

Solution – Primary Fix

Enable and restart cron, then correct job entries.

sysrc cron_enable='YES'
service cron restart
crontab -e

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Move critical jobs to `periodic(8)` scripts for standardized scheduling.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

A test job writes to log at expected minute and no cron syntax errors appear.

Rollback Plan

Restore previous crontab from backup in `/var/cron/tabs/` and restart cron.

Prevention & Hardening

Run lint checks on crontabs and monitor missing job heartbeat alerts.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

`bad minute`, `CMD (..)` absent in logs, stale backup timestamps.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-12.

View all freebsd-12 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

`crontab(5)`, `cron(8)`, `periodic.conf(5)`.