Linux / UNIX Crontab File Location

I login to my UNIX system as a normal user. However, I need to update my cronjob entry. But, I can't find where the crontab file is. How do I find out my crontab file location?

By default cron searches its spool area /var/spool/cron/crontabs directory for crontab files. All files which are named after username i.e. accounts in /etc/passwd file. So if your username is vivek, crontab file location should be /var/spool/cron/crontabs/$USER i.e. /var/spool/cron/crontabs/vivek. Note that crontabs in this directory should not be accessed directly - the crontab command should be used to access and update them as follows:
crontab -e
To view your crontab file (cron jobs) type
crontab -l

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Keul April 15, 2011 at 9:10 am

use -u switch to see crontab of other user (must be root).
eg :
crontab -eu apache

2 khairul May 16, 2011 at 4:18 am

usually we use command
crontab -e
than after that, it will show like below:
2 9 * * * sh /oraias/mid/cronjob/back_pll.sh
25 12 * * * sh /autopatch/script/zipto_patch.sh
~
~
~
~
~
~
“/var/tmp/aaaa14682″ 5 lines, 143 characters

so..as usually the file is located at /var/tmp
and the file name is aaaa14682.

so…try go to folder /var/tmp and then more aaaa14682

may it will help u..

3 Doctor Who October 26, 2012 at 9:10 am: khairul: Are you kidding me? When you run crontab -e, it’ll create a copy of /var/spool/cron/crontabs/”user” to /var/tmp, while editing, once it’s saved, it’ll copy this file back to /var/spool/cron/crontabs/”user”…

Linux / UNIX Crontab File Location

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