Cron in Docker with Debian Slim
Recently, I needed to get cron working inside a Docker container running Debian Slim. It’s not difficult once you figure it out, but it did take a bit of research and learning to get everything to work.
First off, Debian Slim is real slim. There’s no cron nor is there a syslog when you want to debug things. Add apt-get install cron and rsyslog in your Dockerfile before you start anything else. With syslog installed, you can tail /var/log/syslog while you’re debugging your cron files, which is incredibly helpful.
