Root Cron Jobs - Why do the scheduled times change?

Avatar
  • Answered
On a Root enabled VPS here at IMH, we have decided to run database backups automatically for our accounts. The script which makes these backups is called twice daily via a job entry in the root crontab file, and it never uses more than 30 minutes to do the whole servers backups.

The issue we are having is that it seems this cron job is re-scheduling itself to run whenever it wants. We originally set the job up to run 15 minutes after the hour, at 4am and 4pm. After the first run the schedule changed and it runs at 3:36am and 3:36pm, I figured "fine just some load balance thing, still about when we want it." but then after two more runs the script has changed its time again and now runs at 3am and 3pm 5 minutes after the hour.
There isn't any way for us to tell who or what is changing the scheduled time of this job, as far as I know, and we need a way to ensure that it always runs at 4am and 4pm or within at least 30 minutes of those times.

Is there some crontab editor for the root-level cron jobs in WHM that we are missing and should be using to ensure this job runs at these times? What causes the jobs in the /var/spool/cron/root file to change their scheduled time? And how can we make a job that will always run at root level, at exactly or within 30 minutes of, the time which we scheduled the job to run?

Thanks for your time!
Avatar
Scott
Hello cb91, I personally do not have any crons running at the root level, but there is no hidden or extraneous tool needed to keep the crons on time. Are you editing them as described here in the cPanel forums? If so, and they are still being strange, you may want to contact our Live Support so they can walk through your individual setup to see if there is something off. Kindest Regards, Scott M