.TH SYSTEMD-CRONTAB-GENERATOR 8 "2014-06-29" "systemd-cron 1.5.8" systemd-crontab-generator

.SH NAME
systemd-crontab-generator - translate cron schedules in systemd Units

.SH SYNOPSIS
/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-crontab-generator output_folder

.SH DESCRIPTION
systemd-crontab-generator is a generator that translates the legacy cron files (see FILES)
into native systemd units & timers.
.PP
It is not meant to be run manually, it is called automatically by systemd.
.PP
It is run
.TP
*
during early boot,
.TP
*
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,
.TP
*
after each manual updates to the cron files, (*)
.TP
*
and when distribution packages add files in /etc/cron.d/. (*)
.PP

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

.PP
systemd\-crontab\-generator
implements the
\m[blue]\fBgenerator specification\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2\&.

.SH FILES
.TP
.B /etc/crontab
System crontab, see \fBcrontab\fR(5).

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

.TP
.B /etc/anacrontab
See \fBanacrontab\fR(5).

.TP
.B /var/spool/cron/crontabs
Directory for users crontabs.
.br

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

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

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

.SH DIAGNOSTICS
With systemd >= 209, you can execute
.B "systemctl list-timers"
to have a overview of timers and know when they will elapse.
.br

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

.SH SEE ALSO
\fBsystemd.cron\fR(7),\fBcrontab\fR(5),\fBsystemd.unit\fR(5),\fBsystemd.timer\fR(5)

.SH "NOTES"
.IP " 1." 4
generator specification
.RS 4
\%http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Generators
.RE

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