Cron log monitoring in Linux CLI - Interactive Code Practice

Practice - 5 Tasks

1fill in blank

easy

Complete the command to view the cron log file.

Linux CLI

tail -f /var/log/[1]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Amessages

Bcron.log

Csyslog

Dcron

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using syslog or messages file which contain many other logs.

Adding file extensions like .log which may not exist.

The cron log file on many Linux systems is /var/log/cron. Using tail -f lets you watch new cron entries live.

2fill in blank

medium

Complete the command to search cron logs for errors.

Linux CLI

grep '[1]' /var/log/cron

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Aerror

Bcron

Cfail

Dwarning

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Searching for 'cron' which matches all lines.

Using 'warning' which may miss errors.

Searching for the word error helps find cron job failures in the log.

3fill in blank

hard

Fix the error in the command to view cron logs with timestamps.

Linux CLI

awk '[1]' /var/log/cron

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Aprint

B{print $1, $2, $3, $6}

CBEGIN

D{print}

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Omitting curly braces causing syntax errors.

Using 'print' without braces.

The correct awk syntax requires the action block inside curly braces with print and the fields to display.

4fill in blank

hard

Fill both blanks to filter cron logs for a specific user and command.

Linux CLI

grep '[1]' /var/log/cron | grep '[2]'

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Ausername

Broot

Cbackup.sh

Dcron

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using 'username' literally instead of the actual user.

Filtering by 'cron' twice which is redundant.

First filter by the user root, then by the command backup.sh to find relevant cron entries.

5fill in blank

hard

Fill all three blanks to create a dictionary of commands and their run counts from cron logs.

Linux CLI

awk '{print $6}' /var/log/cron | sort | uniq -c | awk '[1]' | sort -nr > [2] && cat [3]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A{print $2, $1}

Bcron_summary.txt

D{print $1, $2}

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Swapping fields in print causing wrong output order.

Using different file names inconsistently.

This command sequence counts how many times each command runs in cron logs, saves the summary to a file, and then displays it.