Crontab not running commands listed in /etc/crontab

Question

so I've got some nfexpire commands that crontab was meant to run listed in /etc/crontab. They have been working fine for some time but recently they've stopped running at all. Every other job runs, just not the ones in /etc/crontab. I have checked that the crontab daemon is running by exectuing systemctl status crond

I have checked /var/log/cron and /var/log/messages as well as running journalctl in search for any errors but haven't found anything.

I have made sure that the commands are executable via the terminal, so the problem lies somewhere in crontab.

The /etc/crontab file:

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root

# For details see man 4 crontabs

# Example of job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# |  |  |  |  |
# *  *  *  *  * user-name  command to be executed
  
30 03 01 * * nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * nfexpire -e "something"

Oh and I've made sure that there's a newline at the end.

Maybe there's an issue with permissions?

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 891 Feb  6  2020 /etc/crontab

However it ran with those settings for a few months without any problems so I don't know if any of this should be changed.

Additional info

System: Centos 7

Kernel: 3.10.0-1160.el7.x86_64

Answer 1

It's a matter of syntax. In this file you should add additional field, a user name:

30 03 01 * * username nfexpire -e "something"

Then, the cron job will be run as username.

Additional considerations.

• Are there all jobs that start simultaneously? Not too good. In that case, better make a script that runs them all and have a single job.
• Better don't edit /etc/crontab at all. Use drop-directories /etc/cron.d and other /etc/cron.* (put executable scripts there) for root-owned jobs which start time is not very important, and what is only important is the periodicity of the job (daily, weekly and so on). Use dedicated user crontabs for user-run jobs: crontab -e -u username. There you omit the "username" field, as the job will run under whoever this particular crontab belongs to. In any case, this way no system update will disturb your crontab entry.
• Consider the use of systemd timers.

Answer 2

Some cron variants allow you to pass some debuggin options.

The following command

• enables detailed logging on job start/end etc. with -L 15
• enables debug flags which e.g. tell you why a crontab was not loaded with -x ... (according to the docs, this can be a number like with -L, but in fact you can only pass a list of string flags)
• runs all jobs right now with -N

cron -N -L15 -x ext,sch,proc,pars,load,misc,test,bit

Example output where /etc/crontab has too open privileges and is skipped therefore:

# cron -N -L15 -x ext,sch,proc,pars,load,misc,test,bit
debug flags enabled: ext sch proc pars load misc test bit
[22] load_database()
log_it: (*system* 22) INSECURE MODE (group/other writable) (/etc/crontab)
    *system*: [added empty placeholder to force rescan]
 [done]
unlinking old database:
load_database is done
[22] GMToff=0
log_it: (CRON 22) INFO (Skipping @reboot jobs -- not system startup)
[22] load_database()
[22] system dir mtime unch, check files now.
[22] spool dir mtime unch, no load needed.
[22] tick(11,11,11,8,5)    

Answer 3

Your /etc/crontab file needs root in front of each command.

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root

# For details see man 4 crontabs

# Example of job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# |  |  |  |  |
# *  *  *  *  * user-name  command to be executed
  
30 03 01 * * root nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * root nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * root nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * root nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * root nfexpire -e "something"
30 03 01 * * root nfexpire -e "something"