I have a VPS that I am using for a cPanel DNS-only setup and I was wondering why crontab was not running on this particular VPS.
In my particular case, logwatch (a package on CentOS) was not sending me emails. Yes, the settings were correct to send me emails.
Step 1: Verify that your crontab-scripts are actually working
root@ns4 [~]# /usr/share/logwatch/scripts/logwatch.pl
Step 2: Verify that crontabs is installed (yes its a package in CentOS that can be uninstalled, most minimalistic templates have it either uninstalled or turned off)
root@ns4 [~]# yum install crontabs Loaded plugins: fastestmirror Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirror01.th.ifl.net * extras: mirror01.th.ifl.net * updates: mirror01.th.ifl.net Excluding Packages in global exclude list Finished Setting up Install Process Package crontabs-1.10-8.noarch already installed and latest version Nothing to do
Step 3: Verify that crontabs is running
root@ns4 [~]# /etc/init.d/crond status crond is stopped
Now that we have found the issue and (I for sure) know that the issue remains even after VPS-reboots so I did this
Step 4: Mark crond package to autostart as soon as a VPS is rebooted
root@ns4 [~]# chkconfig crond on
Step 5: Start the crond service this time (without the need of rebooting your VPS)
root@ns4 [~]# /etc/init.d/crond start Starting crond: [ OK ]
That’s it. I hope you enjoyed reading the easy to understand How-to to fix your crontabs
