how can we know whether a Cron job has been executed or not ??

vikas027 · 04-16-2009, 05:28 AM

Hey,

Is there some way or rather some command which displays some info about the executed cron jobs.

When we run a cron job, logs of it are generated in /var/log/cron
For e.g. we have a cron job

Code:

	[root@Linux]# crontab -l
		      03	12	*	*	*	date > /tmp/abcd
				 
	[root@Linux]# tail -1f /var/log/cron
		      Apr 16 12:03:01 GCESPROUXUHP02 crond[29394]: (root) CMD (date > /tmp/abcd)

Is there some other way to find out executed cron jobs ? Actually, this was asked to me in a interview. I had no answer other than this.

I suggested we could modify the cron job slightly as

Code:

03	12	*	*	*	date > /tmp/abcd 1>/tmp/cron_logs

Doing this, we can see whether the job has executed or not. But, they were looking for some other answer.

repo · 04-16-2009, 05:32 AM

When there is a problem with the cron, you will recieve a mail from the system.
So, no mail, no problem, cron worked OK

vikas027 · 04-16-2009, 05:59 AM

Thanks Repo, I will keep this in mind.

anomie · 04-16-2009, 08:14 AM

You can also check /var/log/cron.

vikas027 · 04-16-2009, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anomie

You can also check /var/log/cron.

Yeah, as mentioned in my post, I know that it shows in /var/log/cron But I wanted to know that does executed jobs get stored in some file
OR
is there some way (like some command) out to find all executed cron jobs other than /var/log/cron

anomie · 04-17-2009, 01:45 PM

If it's important to confirm that certain cronjobs (or all cronjobs) are running, echo something to stdout in them, e.g.:

Code:

echo "Running ${0}..."

By default, stdout will go to the mailbox of the user the cronjob is running as.

anomie · 04-17-2009, 01:49 PM

And, actually, in your simplistic example (from the first post) you could just check the value of /tmp/abcd.