Displaying and Verifying crontab Files
You can use the crontab –l command to display and verify contents of a crontab file.
Verifying That a crontab File Exists
To verify that a crontab file exists for a user, use the ls -l command in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs directory. The following sample output shows that crontab files exist for various users on the system.
$ ls -l /var/spool/cron/crontabs drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 12 Nov 26 16:55 ./ drwxr-xr-x 4 root sys 4 Apr 28 2012 ../ -rw------- 1 root sys 190 Jun 28 2011 adm -rw------- 1 root staff 0 Nov 13 2012 mary -rw------- 1 root un 437 Oct 8 2012 johndoe -r-------- 1 root root 453 Apr 28 2012 lp -rw------- 1 root sparccad 63 Jul 17 10:39 mary2 -rw------- 1 root sparccad 387 Oct 14 15:15 johndoe2 -rw------- 1 root other 2467 Nov 26 16:55 root -rw------- 1 root sys 308 Jun 28 2011 sys -rw------- 1 root siete 163 Nov 20 10:40 mary3 -r-------- 1 root sys 404 Jan 24 2013 uucp
Displaying a crontab File
The crontab –l command displays the contents of a crontab file the same way that the cat command displays the contents of other types of files. You do not have to change the directory to /var/spool/cron/crontabs (where crontab files are located) to use this command.
By default, the crontab –l command displays your own crontab file. To display crontab files that belong to other users, you must assume the root role.
The crontab command can be used as follows:
# crontab -l [username]
where username specifies the name of the user's account for which you want to display a crontab file. Displaying another user's crontab file requires root privileges.
 | Caution - If you accidentally type the crontab command with no option, press the interrupt character for your editor to quit without saving changes. If you instead save changes and exit the file, the existing crontab file will be overwritten with an empty file. |
This example shows how to use the crontab -l command to display the contents of the default crontab file.
$ crontab -l 13 13 * * * chmod g+w /home1/documents/*.book > /dev/null 2>&1Example 36 Displaying the Default root crontab file.
This example shows how to display the default root crontab file.
$ su Password: # crontab -l #ident "@(#)root 1.19 98/07/06 SMI" /* SVr4.0 1.1.3.1 */ # # The root crontab should be used to perform accounting data collection. # # 10 3 * * * /usr/sbin/logadm 15 3 * * 0 /usr/lib/fs/nfs/nfsfind 30 3 * * * [ -x /usr/lib/gss/gsscred_clean ] && /usr/lib/gss/gsscred_clean #10 3 * * * /usr/lib/krb5/kprop_script ___slave_kdcs___Example 37 Displaying the crontab File of Another User
This example shows how to display the crontab file that belongs to another user.
$ su Password: # crontab -l jones 13 13 * * * cp /home/jones/work_files /usr/backup/. > /dev/null 2>&1