LFCS · Question #256
Which of the following statements about crontab are true? (Select TWO).
The correct answer is A. Every user may have their own crontab. C. The cron daemon reloads crontab files automatically when necessary. This question evaluates understanding of crontab files and the cron daemon's operational characteristics.
Question
Options
- AEvery user may have their own crontab.
- BChanging a crontab requires a reload/restart of the cron daemon.
- CThe cron daemon reloads crontab files automatically when necessary.
- Dhourly is the same as "0 * * * *".
- EA cron daemon must run for each existing crontab.
How the community answered
(32 responses)- A91% (29)
- B3% (1)
- E6% (2)
Why each option
This question evaluates understanding of `crontab` files and the `cron` daemon's operational characteristics.
On Linux systems, each user is allowed to have their own `crontab` file, which enables them to schedule jobs to run with their user privileges without affecting other users.
The `cron` daemon is designed to automatically detect changes to `crontab` files and reload them without needing a manual restart or reload command.
The `cron` daemon automatically monitors `crontab` files for changes, typically by checking their modification times, and reloads them dynamically without requiring a manual daemon restart to apply updates.
`hourly` is a keyword often used in `/etc/crontab` (or similar system-wide files) to run scripts in `/etc/cron.hourly`, which is not strictly equivalent to `0 * * * *` (at minute 0 of every hour) as `hourly` scripts may run at a different fixed minute.
Only one `cron` daemon process runs on a system, which is responsible for managing and executing jobs from all user `crontab` files and system-wide cron jobs.
Concept tested: Crontab user access and daemon behavior
Source: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/crontab.5.html
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