🟡 Medium   ⏱ 5–30 min  Last verified: 19 May 2026
Affected versions: FreeBSD 13

📖 ~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

Security and maintenance tasks rely on periodic and cron, and missed runs increase operational risk.

Environment & Reproduction

No daily security emails appear, logs stop rotating, and housekeeping tasks are outdated.

Root Cause Analysis

cron disabled, broken crontab syntax, mail delivery issues, or incorrect periodic variables are typical.

Quick Triage

Run service cron onestatus, inspect /var/log/cron, and execute periodic daily manually to test pipeline.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Confirm daemon state and recent run timestamps in logs. image_ref=0

Illustrative mockup for freebsd-13 — terminal_or_shell
Checking periodic and cron status from terminal — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Primary Fix

Enable cron with sysrc cron_enable=”YES”, fix crontab syntax, and retest using periodic daily output checks. image_ref=1

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Illustrative mockup for freebsd-13 — log_or_config
Auditing crontab entries and periodic.conf — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Control scheduler with service cron start|restart and verify rc.conf persistence after reboot.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Tune /etc/periodic.conf variables for security checks and ensure root mail alias is valid.

Rollback Plan

Permit outbound SMTP relay if periodic output depends on external mail forwarding.

Prevention & Hardening

Run periodic daily and check successful completion plus expected report delivery path.

Track cron heartbeat jobs and alert when periodic reports are missing for a defined window.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-13.

View all freebsd-13 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

Consult man periodic, man cron, man crontab, and FreeBSD administration guides.

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