Crontab entries ignored on Amazon Linux 2 instance

Question

I really can't figure out how one is supposed to set up periodic jobs on those instances. Should I use crontab -e? anacron? The crontab service is running, but not logging anything in journalctl except for edits through crontab -e.  
  
I tried various commands, with and without the user field, and nothing ever gets executed.  
Here is what I did:

```
sudo crontab -e
sudo crontab -l
1 * * * * echo foobar >> /tmp/cron-log 2>&1
```

I also tried to edit /etc/crontab directly, to add this line:  
> 1 ** ** ** ** root echo foobar >> /tmp/cron-log 2>&1  
  
sudo service crond status

```
● crond.service - Command Scheduler
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/crond.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sat 2019-10-05 11:35:27 UTC; 5 days ago
 Main PID: 3236 (crond)
   CGroup: /system.slice/crond.service
           └─3236 /usr/sbin/crond -n
```

journalctl | grep -i cron | grep jobs

```
Oct 10 02:01:01 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal anacron[25202]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
Oct 11 00:01:01 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal anacron[28268]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
Oct 11 01:01:01 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal anacron[31336]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
Oct 11 02:01:01 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal anacron[1942]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
```

journalctl |grep -i cron|tail -20

```
Oct 11 03:35:11 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal sudo[6988]: ec2-user : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/ec2-user ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/crontab -e
Oct 11 03:35:11 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal crontab[6989]: (root) BEGIN EDIT (root)
Oct 11 03:35:34 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal crontab[6989]: (root) REPLACE (root)
Oct 11 03:35:34 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal crontab[6989]: (root) END EDIT (root)
Oct 11 03:36:01 ip-172-31-43-96.us-east-2.compute.internal crond[3236]: (root) RELOAD (/var/spool/cron/root)
```

This is beginning to drive me crazy, any help would be appreciated!  
Franck  
  
Edited by: franck102 on Oct 10, 2019 9:08 PM

Answer

> _RandyTakeshita wrote:_    
> Hi,  
> Was your original intention to run the command every 1 minute?  
> If yes, your cron job should look like the following after typing crontab -e:

> ```
> * * * * * echo foobar >> /tmp/cron-log 2>&1
> ```

Arrgh, indeed, thanks!  
  
So this finally works, after I gave up on /etc/crontab and crontab -e, and instead created my own file in /etc/cron.d.  
  
Franck

Answer

Hi,  
Was your original intention to run the command every 1 minute?  
If yes, your cron job should look like the following after typing crontab -e:

```
* * * * * echo foobar >> /tmp/cron-log 2>&1
```

The way you currently have it setup with the "1" in the first position means that the cron job will run once every hour... i.e. 6:01am, 7:01am, 8:01am, etc...  
  
Hope this helps,  
-randy

Answer

A bit more info: the instance is using cronie; still no idea why nothing gets executed...

```
[ec2-user@ip ~]$ sudo yum list installed | grep -i cron
cronie.x86_64                         1.4.11-19.amzn2                installed
cronie-anacron.x86_64                 1.4.11-19.amzn2                installed
crontabs.noarch                       1.11-6.20121102git.amzn2       installed
[ec2-user@ip ~]$ repoquery --list cronie.x86_64
/etc/cron.d
/etc/cron.d/0hourly
/etc/cron.deny
/etc/pam.d/crond
/etc/sysconfig/crond
/usr/bin/crontab
/usr/lib/systemd/system/crond.service
/usr/sbin/crond
/usr/share/doc/cronie-1.4.11
/usr/share/doc/cronie-1.4.11/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/cronie-1.4.11/COPYING
/usr/share/doc/cronie-1.4.11/ChangeLog
/usr/share/doc/cronie-1.4.11/INSTALL
/usr/share/doc/cronie-1.4.11/README
/usr/share/man/man1/crontab.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/crontab.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/cron.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/crond.8.gz
/var/spool/cron
```

It is unclear whether cronie actually uses the /etc/crontab file, so I created a file in /etc/cron.d - still nothing executed :(

```
[ec2-user@ip cron.d]$ cat influx-update
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
1 * * * * root echo foobar >> /tmp/cron-log 2>&1
```

Edited by: franck102 on Oct 10, 2019 9:36 PM

Crontab entries ignored on Amazon Linux 2 instance

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