Hosting Operations

Read-only

Spot Stale systemd Timers

A timer may exist but have no next scheduled run, which can hide disabled or stale automation.

Command

systemctl list-timers --all --no-pager --plain | awk 'NR==1 || $1=="n/a" || /backup\.timer|logrotate\.timer/'

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Low when scoped to the shown target.

When not to use it: Do not assume n/a is always bad; some timers are intentionally inactive until enabled or triggered.

Expected output

Timer rows including n/a NEXT values and important scheduled jobs.

System impact

Read-only. Nothing changes. The command filters the timer list for stale-looking and important automation rows.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

When to use it

Use when backups, reports, renewals, or cleanup jobs stopped running after a migration or package change.

When not to use it

Do not assume n/a is always bad; some timers are intentionally inactive until enabled or triggered.

Watch this command run

Command transcript

This sanitized transcript shows the commands and output shape without exposing host details.

demo@lab:~$

$ systemctl list-timers --all --no-pager --plain

NEXT                         LEFT     LAST                         PASSED UNIT                 ACTIVATES
Thu 2026-06-25 22:00:00 CDT  7h left  Thu 2026-06-25 02:00:00 CDT  12h ago backup.timer         backup.service
Fri 2026-06-26 00:05:00 CDT  9h left  Thu 2026-06-25 00:05:00 CDT  14h ago certbot.timer        certbot.service
Thu 2026-06-25 23:50:00 CDT  8h left  Thu 2026-06-25 00:00:10 CDT  14h ago logrotate.timer      logrotate.service
n/a                          n/a      Mon 2026-06-22 01:00:00 CDT  3 days ago stale-report.timer stale-report.service
4 timers listed.

$ systemctl list-timers --all --no-pager --plain | awk 'NR==1 || $1=="n/a" || /backup\.timer|logrotate\.timer/'

NEXT                         LEFT     LAST                         PASSED UNIT                 ACTIVATES
Thu 2026-06-25 22:00:00 CDT  7h left  Thu 2026-06-25 02:00:00 CDT  12h ago backup.timer         backup.service
Thu 2026-06-25 23:50:00 CDT  8h left  Thu 2026-06-25 00:00:10 CDT  14h ago logrotate.timer      logrotate.service
n/a                          n/a      Mon 2026-06-22 01:00:00 CDT  3 days ago stale-report.timer stale-report.service

View commands shown

These are the commands shown in the sanitized transcript.

Commands shown

systemctl list-timers --all --no-pager --plain
systemctl list-timers --all --no-pager --plain | awk 'NR==1 || $1=="n/a" || /backup\.timer|logrotate\.timer/'

next steps

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