Cron Logs

You can send your cron logs to Loggly by redirecting the standard output and error to logger. Logger will send them to your syslog daemon, which then forward them to Loggly. This can be easier than using Postfix which requires you manage emails. For alternatives, such as sending file logs from cron jobs, or capturing cron syslog events, see the Advanced Options section below.

Cron Logging Setup

1. Configure Syslog Daemon

If you haven’t already, run our automatic Configure-Syslog script below to setup rsyslog. Alternatively, you can Manually Configure Rsyslog or Syslog-ng.

curl -O https://www.loggly.com/install/configure-linux.sh
sudo bash configure-linux.sh -a SUBDOMAIN -u USERNAME

Replace:

SUBDOMAIN: your account subdomain that you created when you signed up for Loggly.
USERNAME: your Loggly username.

2. Configure Cronjob

You can redirect your cron standard output to syslog using the logger command.

*/5 * * * * COMMAND 2>&1 | /usr/bin/logger -t APPNAME

Replace:

COMMAND: insert your own cron command or script
APPNAME: replace with your own custom app or cron name

For example, this cron job which prints ‘Hello World!’ every 5 minutes:

*/5 * * * * echo 'Hello World!' 2>&1 | /usr/bin/logger -t HelloCron

It creates the following log entry

Apr 28 17:20:01 PSQ110 HelloCron: Hello World!

3. Verify Events

Search Loggly for events with your chosen appName over the past hour. It may take few minutes to index the event. If if doesn’t work, see the troubleshooting section below.

syslog.appName:APPNAME

cron logs

Advanced Options

Linux Syslog – capture syslog events from the cron executable itself, which describes when crons are run
Log File Monitoring – If you log to file, you can send these files to Loggly.
Loggly Libraries Catalog – You can find more options here to send logs to Loggly.

Troubleshooting Cron Logs

Wait a few minutes in case indexing needs to catch up.
Check if you have restarted rsyslog service.
Run "sudo tcpdump -i lo -A udp and port 514″ to verify UDP events are being sent to localhost.
You can check your /var/log/mail.log file for any cron jobs failure.
Search or post your own Cron logs questions in the community forum

When the APM Integrated Experience is enabled, Loggly shares a common navigation and enhanced feature set with the other integrated experiences' products. How you navigate Loggly and access its features may vary from these instructions. For more information, go to the APM Integrated Experience documentation.

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