FreeBSD 15 – periodic daily jobs do not run because cron service is disabled

📖 ~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

Periodic maintenance, security checks, and rotation tasks are skipped silently.

Environment & Reproduction

Detected by missing /var/log/daily.log updates and stale housekeeping outputs.

service cron status
ls -l /var/log/daily.log
periodic daily

Root Cause Analysis

cron daemon disabled in rc.conf or stopped after post-upgrade service drift.

Quick Triage

Validate rc flags and running process state.

sysrc cron_enable
ps aux | grep '[c]ron'
crontab -l

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Review cron logs and periodic configuration controls.

grep cron /var/log/messages | tail -n 50
cat /etc/defaults/periodic.conf | head -n 80
cat /etc/periodic.conf 2>/dev/null || true

Solution – Primary Fix

Enable cron and execute catch-up periodic tasks.

sysrc cron_enable=YES
service cron start
periodic daily
periodic weekly

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use dedicated scheduler for custom workloads while keeping periodic baseline active.

pkg install -y fcron
service fcron enable

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Scheduled task logs update on expected cadence and exit statuses are clean.

service cron status
tail -n 30 /var/log/daily.log

Rollback Plan

Disable custom scheduler changes and restore baseline cron-only scheduling.

service fcron stop || true
pkg delete -y fcron || true

Prevention & Hardening

Alert when periodic logs stop updating for more than 24 hours.

find /var/log -name daily.log -mtime +1 -print

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Often accompanies log rotation growth and outdated pkg audit data.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-15.

View all freebsd-15 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

cron, periodic, and rc.conf documentation in the FreeBSD Handbook.