Crontab - simple echo not running

linux cron scheduling
zlenyk picture zlenyk · Mar 4, 2015 · Viewed 37.3k times · Source

I've got such situation: I want to schedule a job with crontab on a linux server. I'm not super-user, so I'm editing (with crontab -l, editor vim) only my crontab file. For testing, I put there:

* * * * * echo asdf

And the job is not running. Is the restart of the server needed? Or maybe some administrator move?

Answer

Kedar Parikh picture Kedar Parikh · Mar 4, 2015

May be it is, cron jobs will run in their own shell. So you can't expect to see asdf on your console.

What you should try is 

* * * * * echo asdf > somefile_in_your_home_directory_with_complete_path.log

Next check the file by doing a tail:

tail -f somefile_in_your_home_directory_with_complete_path.log

And if it's not, check if the cron daemon itself is running or is down:

# pgrep crond

OR

# service crond status

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