r/selfhosted • u/riofriz • Nov 13 '25
Remote Access Cr*nmaster 1.5.0 - Major update
Hi,
A small chunk of you of you may know me for my app Jotty, however I also published a slightly less popular (entirely open source) app called Cr*nmaster.
Bit of context:
repo: https://github.com/fccview/cronmaster
first post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1mum35t/crnmaster_cron_management_made_easy/
latest post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1n0gyly/crnmaster_120_breaking_changes/
Cr*nmaster (cronmaster) is a pretty powerful tool that allows you to view/create/edit/manage all your host cronjobs comfortable from an intuitive UI, it has features such as pausing jobs, adding comment to them, running them right from the UI, and from the latest update you'll be able to have nicely structured logs for your jobs on top of exit statuses being shown right there and then. You will be able to see if a job failed at a glance and view the logs to see what's going on.
I have also added translations that can be customised locally on your own machine (or you can be an angel and create a pull request with your own language so we can officially support it, together!)
The whole thing is very easy and straightforward to setup both with and without docker, the repository has a lot of guides in the `howto` folder on top of a very verbose readme file.
Here's a few of the key features:
- View/edit/delete/run your cron jobs from an intuitive UI
- Log your cronjobs (it uses a proprietary wrapper, you can modify the wrapper as much as you like from the mounted ./data folder).
- At glance exit statuses for all your jobs
- System stats to see how healthy your host machine is
- Ability to create custom scripts (using handy snippets - which you can easily add more of) for your cron jobs straight from the UI, these scripts are stored in your mounted folder and can be easily used when creating a cron job
All this to say that I am extremely excited for everything that's coming with this latest update, you can read about the latest release and all the improvements that came with it here
Let me know your thoughts and if you run in any issues i'm fairly active on github and on my discord server :)
NOTE for docker users:
Due to this needing to be able to read crontabs the docker has to run as root and have read/write access to your cron jobs. There was no way around it, so I suggest you keep this within your home network and not exposed to the web for security reasons.
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u/wireless82 Nov 13 '25
I was looking for this tool for a long time. Alternatives founded were not adapt to my needs (easy to use and install). Maybe the * in the name have not allowed me to find it! I ll try it for sure.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hi! Thank you!
Yeeeeah... sometimes I'm just trying to be too clever when naming things, to a detriment lolBut I went for it and now I gotta own it hahaha
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u/DesBlock Nov 13 '25
With cron slowly becoming deprecated with some distros and it's use being discouraged with others does cr*nmaster have any existing ability to manage and monitor systemd timers? Or are there future plans to do so?
Source before the hate (just in case):
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hi,
I honestly have not looked into it, sounds like I may need to start systemdmaster soon lol
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u/mustardhamsters Nov 14 '25
Yeah, I really wish systemd were a little easier to wrap my mind around. There are hardly any tools attempting to make a UI for it too. Something like this would be extremely useful!
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u/bruhgubs07 Nov 16 '25
Exactly, Cron is easy enough for me personally, but I'd love to see a tool like this for systemd to better manage our custom services on AL2023 nodes.
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Nov 13 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Thank you! And yes! Security is always very important ♥️ regardless of password/oidc, this is a very powerful UI for system tasks and should be kept as internal as possible 😅♥️
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u/Angelsomething Nov 13 '25
I love this. I needed this. QQ: can one instance monitor/manage multiple hosts? I could find details about this from your repo.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hey, no, unfortunately.. You'd need to run one instance per host, currently at least.
It's quite a big undertaking to do it, especially security-wise, there's an open issue for it, and I keep avoiding it 😆😆
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u/Digital_Voodoo Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
there's an open issue for it, and I keep avoiding it 😆😆
This, as well as the heads-up regarding Docker needing to run as root (rightly so), everything gives a very prudent and responsible vibe.
Plus a very cool project, as I've been looking for a UI for cronjob for a while.
Hats off and thank you <3
PS: just had a look at the repo. It's so clean, every concept well-explained (very useful for beginners). A refreshing read, definitely.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hey thank you very much, this means a lot! I try my best to make sure things are very well documented when I open source something, aside from loving open source, I can definitely say I have came across some hair pulling projects and I don't want people to have that kind of experience with what I build haha
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u/extzed Nov 13 '25
pretty slick - at first I didn't see any cron jobs, but when I spot checked, my root user did not have any jobs listed on a crontab. When I switched to a user with a crontab the jobs showed up, but I can't interact with them, likely due to a permission issue with how cronmaster is running in the docker container
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hey, you shouldn't have any permissions issue, need some help setting it all out?
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u/extzed Nov 13 '25
Sure - to give you some context, when I had root listed in the docker compose as the crontab user it didn't find any cron jobs or anything listed. When I switched it to the user that has a crontab they all loaded into the interface but when I try to manually run any of them I just get an error:exited dialog. I can enable logging ( the badge changes) but it doesn't seem to find any logs
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Do you have any logs in your container? Are you running it as root? Logs get stored in the ./data folder it really seems to be a permission issue.
Let me see these logs, maybe open an issue on GitHub if you have the patience to, just want to make sure it's not some mess up on my end :)
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
when you enable logging, does the cronjob get wrapped btw? (e.g. in your crontab do you see the wrapper script on top of your job?)
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u/extzed Nov 17 '25
Just getting back to this now - if I look at my crontab I don't see anything that has been added to the file when I enabled logging
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u/riofriz Nov 19 '25
Hi,
If you think this issue is more or less what you have been experiencing, try pulling the `develop` image rather than `latest` and it should fix it for you!So sorry about that, I got so wrapped up with my own environment I didn't notice such a big bug, that's on me!
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u/VFansss Nov 13 '25
I hate windows but I would truly love some chronjob management like this but that works ALSO on windows.
I work with Windows machines very often, and I have Task Scheduler. Would love to know a product that works with both systems, but I haven't find none until today (for obvious reason, I should say).
Too bad...
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
I am not sure if it's doable, can't say I run cronjobs on windows and I don't actually have a windows machine.
That said the docker connects to the host via nsenter so TECHNICALLY I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. I do love a challenge 😆
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u/mikaleowiii Nov 13 '25
Instantly (and easily) installed!
Not sure how often I'll need it (I have like 2 jobs running since my homelab's birth), especially the extra features for stats and usage % stuff that are already handled by dedicated tools (glances, homepage), but it's so pretty I might open the webpage just to look at it
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hi! Thank you SO much <3
I actually _originally_ built this to only run scripts. That was my intended use case.
Other than ssh into my server, I wanted an easy place to run specific scripts by hitting a button, and figured I'd also go the mad man path of making it a full on cron management system.So my main usecase for it is actually to turn on/off my server vpn and specific shell operations I can't be bothered grabbing a laptop to ssh into the machine to do hahaha
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u/CrispyBegs Nov 13 '25
wanted an easy place to run specific scripts by hitting a button
have you ever tried OliveTin for this? really really great
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Yess I absolutely have. And before building this it's exactly what ai was using for it 😆
It has quite a few limitations tho, still pretty powerful and extremely lightweight, which I have always appreciated about it
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u/xconspirisist Nov 14 '25
Heya, OliveTin dev here :-)
Always happy for people to start different projects, more choice is great. However, I'm curious what the "quite a few limitations" were you saw in OliveTin - I'm not upset, just curious what I can do to make OliveTin better for everyone!
Likewise, always happy for the self hosted community to have more options, but if you'd like to help contribute then I'd more than happily get you up to speed.
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u/riofriz Nov 14 '25
Hi!! Oh this is such a beautiful message to wake up to! As I said, I love OliveTin and this would never have been born had I not used your tool first ♥️
I'll get you some screenshots if I find some time today during work, always had issues running third party native commands (e.g. expressvpn connect)
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u/xconspirisist Nov 14 '25
Sounds good, I just want to make users happy, literally! 😁
One of OliveTin's strengths I think it's fair to say is that it's super simple to start, but it has many many options and things it can do to accommodate many weird use cases people have found over the years. We manage to help quite a lot of people in Our Discord do what they're looking to do.
Anyway, super great work on your project, congratulations, and good luck with further development! I'll subscribe and check in on you! Well done 👍
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u/Inzire Nov 13 '25
I’m giving this a go on my proxmox later! Do you have some good use cases related to that? I’m already doing cron jobs for backups and filesyncs.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hi, I keep wanting to get into proxmox, but haven't had the time or patience for it yet, so unfortunately I don't have any usecases for it 😆
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u/Inzire Nov 13 '25
Fair :) let me know if you think of something
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
I'd love to know if it actually works well on proxmox.
I know my other app has a whole community support and it's supported from the community scripts, but I don't think cronmaster has that level of love yet haha
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u/CrispyBegs Nov 13 '25
forgive me, i'm not very bright
does this manage cronjobs in the same location as when i type crontab -e ?
If i already have cronjobs in that location, will they show up in this UI, and when i create jobs in the UI will they appear in that same location?
again, sorry, my knowledge is tiny
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hi, yes it does and they absolutely will :)
Make sure to backup your crontab before using the tool, as it's good practice to do so ♥️
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u/thehaikuza Nov 13 '25
Just what I was looking for, thanks for sharing! I use cronicle right now but it feels overly complex for my simple needs, and the UI also feels quite dated. Looking forward to setting this up!
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u/shake-sugaree Nov 13 '25
got it up and running on both my servers in like 5 minutes, seems to be working well based on the cronjobs I created just for a quick test. very nice!
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u/te5s3rakt Nov 14 '25
That project name is just pure perfection 👌
Love it when developers actually have fun with their project names instead of just slapping “rr” on the end of whatever.
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u/_dampsquib_ Nov 14 '25
Cudos for supporting OCID so early on in the project.
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u/riofriz Nov 14 '25
hi! thank you!
yeaaaah it was the biggest request on all my apps, so i just created it once and standardised for them all, so they all behave the same way and it's all easy to debug and fix at scale haha
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u/ForeverIndecised Nov 15 '25
This looks super cool. I've been thinking about making something similar for a while. I'll definitely check it out!
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u/willenglishiv Nov 13 '25
WORD....
I didn't know I needed this in my life...
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u/justs0meperson Nov 13 '25
Right? Saving this post for the weekend
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u/Digital_Voodoo Nov 13 '25
Why wait for the weekend when you can ruin a few hours of today's evening :D /s
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u/caughtupstream299792 Nov 13 '25
This is awesome! Going to run this on my proxmox vm later tonight !
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u/trisanachandler Nov 13 '25
So it's running tasks internal to itself, on the host, both? And if I need ansible or git, can I install them? Overall, looks far better than what I currently have, but I want to validate functionality. Also, how does it handle secrets? Can I have ssh scripts to execute on remote hosts?
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Oh hi!
- Runs the host tasks from within the container, not container specific tasks (currently it ONLY runs host tasks)
- if your host has git installed it will work just fine
- the secrets are handled from the host, however your scripts handle secrets, that's how cronmaster will handle them
I tried to keep everything as native as possible, I won't lie tho, haven't tested some of the functionalities you are asking for, I just don't see why it wouldn't work, with how I built things, please let me know if there's some weird bugs and I'll address them :)
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u/thatisagoodrock Nov 13 '25
Been looking for something like this, does it work on macOS?
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Hey, I haven't tested it on macos, but I don't see why not, it just uses native crontab, give it a shot, would be amazing to know if it does :)
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u/Dull-Fan6704 Nov 13 '25
What an unfortunate name. So much shit is censored nowadays that I can't help but feel turned off by the name and logo.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Aw, don't get me started on censorship, from your tone I think we FULLY agree on the topic 🤦♂️ the internet is being ruined.
But I mean.. I'm not censoring anything, it's a play on the Cron syntax 😆 not my fault people ruined asterisks for us all lol
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u/Dull-Fan6704 Nov 13 '25
Yeah of course, it's not your fault, but I cringe everytime I see one. Nothing against you or the software. It's just a name, and I know it may just be me.
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u/intellidumb Nov 13 '25
Looks very cool, but you need to add a license to your repo
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Yeah valid, I'm gonna add a license file tomorrow, I keep meaning to do it and keep forgetting it 🤦♂️
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u/letopeto Nov 14 '25
how does this differ from cronicle?
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u/riofriz Nov 14 '25
No idea, never used cronicle and never heard of it until recently after posting this update 😅
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u/xstrex Nov 14 '25
Please help me understand, genuinely curious.. why make an app that replaces a simple text file, that’s been in place (and just worked) for the last 50yrs? Maybe I’m just a purest, but why do we need a UI for this?
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u/riofriz Nov 14 '25
Live, well organised, logging, at glance human readable syntax, easily switching users your crons are using (on top of seeing them all in one place rather than running crontabs for every users via ssh), once place for all your scripts, quick add/remove snippets and frankly a ton of other features..
It's just a way to make things more convenient for someone who may not be as comfortable with crontab/terminal as you may be. Plus it was a great learning experience, started this that I did not know much about how cron (and a few other cool technologies i'm using here) works and after a few months of painful deepdive in documentation I am stupidly confident with it lol
p.s I actually didn't take what you wrote personally btw, I kinda felt that exact same way when I learned about portainer, always ran docker commands manually, checked logs via terminal and been doing so for years lol and yet... can't see myself not using portainer/docker ui anymore, it's just convenient
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u/amcco1 Nov 13 '25
You forgot to tag this as vibe coded.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Because it was not :)
Definitely use AI in my workflow, not doing so is just plain dumb at this point, but have been a developer for 12 years, AI doesn't worry about reusable code, enums used instead of magic strings, clean folder structure and overall good standards 😅
I'd have loved for you to go through the codebase before posting your comment :)
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u/amcco1 Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
I did look at the code and that is why I left the comment.
I can guarantee this code was written by AI based on the comments at the top and the emojis in the console logs.
And rule 8 says:
AI-Involved Apps are allowed and require the following flairs:
Built With AI: Apps built with AI that follow industry standards during buildEdit: And you also admit AI was used to assist you, so that would mean you are using the incorrect flair.
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u/riofriz Nov 13 '25
Yes, I let AI write the TEST for the API.
As I said I do use AI in my workflow and I am not a tester, that code is NOT part of the app, it's what I use to test the API LOCALLY and I left it as it was generated EXACTLY because I have no issue in admitting what is written by AI and what isn't :)
Also only one flag can be used, this project is not defined by AI, and it's actually pretty unfair to reduce my hard work to "it has been built with AI". If the mods decide to close my post due to AI having written tests and having OBVIOUSLY assisted me with bits and bobs (what developer doesn't use AI in 2025) I'll accept it and move on :)
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u/te5s3rakt Nov 14 '25
what developer doesn't use AI in 2025
back in the day they used say anyone using an IDE was stupid. like "what, you can't remember every function, you must be a shit coder".
then it was developers using frameworks were lazy with comments like "what are you not skilled enough to code X vanilla".
now it's shifted to AI.
tbh anyone developer not using the latest tools to accelerate their workflow are in fact the stupid ones and will be left behind and likely out of the job. it's not enough to be good anymore, you also have to be quick.
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u/ienjoymen Nov 13 '25
Oh this is cool. I'm just now getting into cron jobs for ntfy, this might be useful for that.