Il file cron contiene i messaggi del programma crond, utility di esecuzione periodica. (estratto dal file cron di paley.dm.unipi.it)

CRON (02/14-08:54:04-104) STARTUP (fork ok)
root (02/14-08:55:00-303) CMD (/usr/sbin/atrun)
root (02/14-08:56:00-346) CMD (/usr/sbin/salert)
root (02/14-08:57:00-348) CMD (/usr/sbin/atrun)
root (02/14-08:58:00-374) CMD (/usr/sbin/salert)
    [...]
root (02/14-09:35:00-1474) CMD (/usr/local/sbin/clear)
    [...]
root (02/14-10:30:00-2987) CMD (/usr/local/sbin/scadenza
                                | /usr/local/bin/mail.pl)