How to disable everything in crontab -l?

Question

I just want to pause everyhthing. DOn't execute crontab -l.

Answer 1

crontab -e then comment out each line you don't want to run with #.

Answer 2

Do you have root access? Just pause cron

sudo /etc/init.d/crond stop

Then restart it when you're ready

sudo /etc/init.d/crond start

Answer 3

crontab -l > my_cron_backup.txt   &&   crontab -r     # save everything and remove everything
...
crontab my_cron_backup.txt     # restore from file

crontab -l     # enjoy

Answer 4

If you are using vi as editor, then just enter :%s/^/#/ in command mode. In all lines (%), it substitutes (s///) the begin of line (^) with a hash (#).