# Why renew works every day? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [November 23, 2017, 1:38pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919 "2017-11-23T13:38:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tommyboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@Tommyboy](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Tommyboy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 1:38pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919/1 "2017-11-23T13:38:22Z")
Hello. When I saw /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log, I found renewal works every day as follows… $ grep ‘Cert not yet due for renewal’ /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log\* /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log:2017-11-23 12:49:33,796:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log:2017-11-23 12:49:33,801:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log:2017-11-23 12:49:33,807:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log:2017-11-23 12:49:33,821:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.1:2017-11-23 00:52:40,774:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.1:2017-11-23 00:52:40,788:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.1:2017-11-23 00:52:40,814:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.1:2017-11-23 00:52:40,840:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.2:2017-11-22 12:27:34,731:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.2:2017-11-22 12:27:34,738:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.2:2017-11-22 12:27:34,765:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.2:2017-11-22 12:27:34,792:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.3:2017-11-22 00:16:10,575:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.3:2017-11-22 00:16:10,591:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.3:2017-11-22 00:16:10,615:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.3:2017-11-22 00:16:10,639:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.4:2017-11-21 12:58:46,567:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.4:2017-11-21 12:58:46,574:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.4:2017-11-21 12:58:46,581:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log.4:2017-11-21 12:58:46,587:INFO:certbot.renewal:Cert not yet due for renewal For now, I only set cron to renew just once per month as follows. $ cat /etc/crontab SHELL=/bin/sh PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin # m h dom mon dow user command #37 \* \* \* \* root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly 10 1 \* \* \* root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily ) 33 1 \* \* 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly ) 47 3 10 \* \* root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly ) 0 0 8 \* \* root /bin/bash /usr/sbin/letsencrypt\_auto-update.sh \>\>/var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt\_update.log 2\>&1 Why renew works every day? OS: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS and Debian GNU/Linux 8 Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![mkwm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/87869e/32.png) [@mkwm](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/mkwm)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919/2 "2017-11-23T15:52:48Z")
I guess it’s not the only Let’s Encrypt renewal cronjob you have. Maybe there is one in `/etc/cron.d` directory? On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend triggering renewal check once a month. If cronjob fails to obtain certificate for any reason (for example, maintenance at Let’s Encrypt or brief network disruption), next attempt would be triggered after a month (and it may fail again, if you are unlucky). Note that logfile says `Cert not yet due for renewal` - certbot (by default) renews only certificates which expire in a month. If certificates are valid for a longer time, certbot simply exits, doing nothing (so there is no harm triggering it twice a day). ---
**Author:** ![bytecamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@bytecamp](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/bytecamp)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919/3 "2017-11-23T15:55:47Z")
Most probably there is a systemd-timer for certbot active - you don’t need the cronjob in this case. Like @mkwm already mentions, this is desired behaviour. ---
**Author:** ![Tommyboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@Tommyboy](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Tommyboy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919/4 "2017-11-23T16:59:17Z")
Thank you for nice advice, @mkwm. I forgot the case of cron failure. And , as @bytecamp said, looks like systemd timer for certbot is active. # ls -l /etc/systemd/system/timers.target.wants/certbot.timer lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Nov 12 13:30 /etc/systemd/system/timers.target.wants/certbot.timer -\> /lib/systemd/system/certbot.timer # sudo journalctl -u certbot.service – Logs begin at Tue 2017-11-14 16:10:46 UTC, end at Thu 2017-11-23 16:41:03 UTC Nov 15 00:00:00 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Starting Certbot… Nov 15 00:44:36 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Started Certbot. Nov 15 12:00:01 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Starting Certbot… Nov 15 12:54:11 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Started Certbot. Nov 16 00:00:01 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Starting Certbot… Nov 16 00:03:46 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Started Certbot. Nov 16 12:00:01 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Starting Certbot… Nov 16 12:54:09 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Started Certbot. Nov 17 00:00:01 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Starting Certbot… Nov 17 00:23:25 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Started Certbot. Nov 17 12:00:02 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Starting Certbot… Nov 17 12:10:28 [mydomain.com](http://mydomain.com) systemd[1]: Started Certbot. Debian and Ubuntu do not need cron for certbot? Anyway I will be able to delete cron for certificate renewal. Thank you for the help. ---
**Author:** ![oloryn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/oloryn/32/10133_2.png) [@oloryn](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/oloryn)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 6:02am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919/5 "2017-12-01T06:02:54Z")
The current certbot Ubuntu PPA install inserts both a systemd timer, and a cron entry in /etc/cron.d(at least for those versions of Ubuntu which have systemd), but the cron entry is set up to do nothing if systemd is active (it looks for the directory /run/systemd/system and doesn’t run certbot renew if the directory is there). ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2017, 6:03am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/why-renew-works-every-day/46919/6 "2017-12-31T06:03:09Z")
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.