# cron module idempotence when starting to use Ansible with an existing non-empty crontab

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/cron-module-idempotence-when-starting-to-use-ansible-with-an-existing-non-empty-crontab/12257>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** ansible-project\
**Created:** [January 28, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/cron-module-idempotence-when-starting-to-use-ansible-with-an-existing-non-empty-crontab/12257 "2013-01-28T15:51:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/cron-module-idempotence-when-starting-to-use-ansible-with-an-existing-non-empty-crontab/12257/1 "2013-01-28T15:51:58Z")

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If you can template the crontab from a file, I would almost always do  
it that way.

If you can use cron.daily or cron.weekly, I would almost always do it  
that way too

Crontab module is for when you need to add very specific things with  
Ansible, but it can't (and intentionally won't) perform surgery on  
settings added by other users  
without that prefix.

If you can ever manage entirely centrally, I would recommend doing it  
(template /etc/crontab or cron.daily, etc)