89

How can I stop a cron job which is currently running?

nhinkle
  • 37,661

11 Answers11

48

You can do this the same way you'd stop any process.

To stop a currently running cron job, you can do one of the following:

pkill process-name

or if you know the PID (you can determine it by running ps):

kill 1234

(substituting the actual PID)

Dennis Williamson
  • 111,445
35

Strange, no one has mentioned this method:

$ crontab -e

In the opened editor, delete line of the task you want to stop or insert a # sign, save and exit

e.g.

before

* * * * * some_script1
* * * * * some_script2

after

* * * * * some_script1
#* * * * * some_script2

or 

* * * * * some_script1

restart the service after making changes by

sudo service cron reload
sinapan
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laike9m
  • 491
21

To stop running cron job .First get the process id of your command with

top -p $(pgrep -d',' your_command)

eg:-

top -p $(pgrep -d',' httpd)

and run

kill PID replace PID with process id

Miqdad Ali
  • 379
13

If you are using Redhat (RHEL)/Fedora Core/Cent OS Linux use the following command : 

/etc/init.d/crond stop

If you are using Debian or Ubuntu Linux the following command : 

/etc/init.d/cron stop

P.S : You should be root to do these things

Navaneeth Sen
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12

First type ps aux to see what all processes are running.

Then note down the PID of each process you want to stop

Then type

kill {PID} for each process.

Also do have a look at these links (superuser links) :

Verify-that-a-cron-job-has-completed

ps-aux-output-meaning

Community
  • 1
Gaurav Sharma
  • 569
3

You can edit the cron table and comment out the task in question. Switch to the user that controls the task, export your editor of choice into the environment, then use crontab -l:

$ su - root
...
# EDITOR=vi; export EDITOR
# crontab -l
Gareth
  • 19,080
mfe
  • 171
2

If you want to remove all the crontabs that are running (the commands will be lost):

crontab -r

... or If you want to stop some commands on crontab:

  1. Open crontab to edit:
 crontab -e
  1. Comment the commands in the crontab that needs to be stopped and save it. You can comment using '#'.
Hosana Gomes
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Crescent
  • 21
2

This is my take on this, which I use from time to time.

First, let's find the process IDs of the processes cron has started by using:

systemctl status cron

This will give you a nice little process tree.

Each process' ID are the numbers displayed to the left of the process' name.

So, if my process ID for a process started by cron is 2234225, then I'll simply go:

kill 2234225

I can check either with:

systemctl status cron

or

top

that the process has been terminated.

Just remember, if the process in question is set to be started as defined by the crontab

crontab -e

then, the process in question will become activated again, just with a different process ID.

ChaotiX66
  • 21
1

Working for me for linux

pkill -9 crontab

Kills all process having process name crontab

Abdul Saleem
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0

First of all check the working process with this command.

ps -o pid,sess,cmd afx | egrep "( |/)cron( -f)?$"

This command's output is

599  599 cron
4288  599 \_ CRON

and now kill the process with this command 

pkill -s 4288
aemre
  • 101
0

If you are using Redhat (RHEL)/Fedora Core/Cent OS Linux use the following command :

$ sudo systemctl status crond

If you are using Debian or Ubuntu Linux the following command :

$ sudo systemctl status cron

GoYun.Info
  • 201