How to Verify Limited crontab Access

To verify if a specific user can access crontab, use the crontab -l command while you are logged into the user account.

$ crontab -l

If the user can access crontab, and already has created a crontab file, the file is displayed. Otherwise, if the user can access crontab but no crontab file exists, a message such as the following is displayed:

crontab: can't open your crontab file

This user either is listed in cron.allow (if the file exists), or the user is not listed in cron.deny.

If the user cannot access the crontab command, the following message is displayed whether or not a previous crontab file exists:

crontab: you are not authorized to use cron. Sorry.

This message means that either the user is not listed in cron.allow (if the file exists), or the user is listed in cron.deny.