Nos derivados do Debian, incluindo Lubuntu, os arquivos em /etc/cron.d são efetivamente /etc/crontab snippets, com o mesmo formato. Citando a cron manpage :
Additionally, in Debian,
cronreads the files in the/etc/cron.ddirectory.crontreats the files in/etc/cron.das in the same way as the/etc/crontabfile (they follow the special format of that file, i.e. they include the user field). However, they are independent of/etc/crontab: they do not, for example, inherit environment variable settings from it. This change is specific to Debian see the note under DEBIAN SPECIFIC below.Like
/etc/crontab, the files in the/etc/cron.ddirectory are monitored for changes. In general, the system administrator should not use/etc/cron.d/, but use the standard system crontab/etc/crontab.
A seção específica do Debian sugere o motivo pelo qual os administradores do sistema não devem usar /etc/cron.d :
Support for
/etc/cron.d(drop-in dir for package crontabs)
Ele foi projetado para permitir que os pacotes instalem trechos do crontab sem ter que modificar /etc/crontab .