NAME

       systemd-crontab-generator - translate cron schedules in systemd Units

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generator output_folder

DESCRIPTION

       systemd-crontab-generator is a generator that translates the legacy cron files (see FILES)
       into native systemd units & timers.

       It is not meant to be run manually, it is called automatically by systemd.

       It is run

       *      during early boot,

       *      a second time by cron-after-var.service, only if /var is a separate mount, in order
              to process user crontabs in /var/spool/cron/crontabs; if any,

       *      after each manual updates to the cron files, (*)

       *      and when distribution packages add files in /etc/cron.d/. (*)

       (*): those are monitored by cron-update.path

       systemd-crontab-generator implements the generator specification[1].

FILES

       /etc/crontab
              System crontab, see crontab(5).

       /etc/cron.d
              Directory for system crontabs provided by packages.

       /etc/anacrontab
              See anacrontab(5).

       /var/spool/cron/crontabs
              Directory for users crontabs.

       /run/systemd/generator
              Directory where the generated units are stored.

       /run/crond.reboot
              Flag used to avoid running @reboot jobs again after boot.

       /var/lib/systemd/timers
              Directory where systemd store time stamps needed for the Persistent feature.

DIAGNOSTICS

       You can execute systemctl list-timers to have a overview of timers and know when they will
       elapse.

       If you get errors like
       /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generator failed with error code 1.
       in the journal, you can manually run
       /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generator /tmp
       to get a more verbose error message.

SEE ALSO

       systemd.cron(7), crontab(5), systemd.unit(5), systemd.timer(5)

NOTES

        1. generator specification
           http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Generators

AUTHOR

       Konstantin Stepanov <me@kstep.me> for the generator
       Alexandre Detiste <alexandre@detiste.be> for this man page