diff --git a/src/freedombone b/src/freedombone
index 365d8bcd..2e050835 100755
--- a/src/freedombone
+++ b/src/freedombone
@@ -1753,7 +1753,7 @@ function configure_avahi {
   # this is a blatant hack, but I couldn't find a better way of mitigating the problem
   # of avahi-daemon stopping after a few minutes
   if ! grep -q "avahi-daemon" /etc/crontab; then
-      echo '* *\t* * *\troot\tsystemctl restart avahi-daemon > /dev/null' >> /etc/crontab
+      echo '* *     * * *   root    systemctl restart avahi-daemon > /dev/null' >> /etc/crontab
   fi
 
   echo 'configure_avahi' >> $COMPLETION_FILE
diff --git a/src/freedombone-client b/src/freedombone-client
index e75c73e9..08cbe4e7 100755
--- a/src/freedombone-client
+++ b/src/freedombone-client
@@ -120,9 +120,9 @@ function mesh_babel {
   echo '    sed -i "s|host-name=.*|host-name=$(hostname)|g" /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf' >> $babel_script
   echo '    if ! grep -q "avahi-daemon" /etc/crontab; then' >> $babel_script
   echo '        if [ -f /bin/systemctl ]; then' >> $babel_script
-  echo "            echo '* *\t* * *\troot\tsystemctl restart avahi-daemon > /dev/null' >> /etc/crontab" >> $babel_script
+  echo "            echo '* *     * * *   root    systemctl restart avahi-daemon > /dev/null' >> /etc/crontab" >> $babel_script
   echo '        else' >> $babel_script
-  echo "            echo '* *\t* * *\troot\tservice avahi-daemon restart > /dev/null' >> /etc/crontab" >> $babel_script
+  echo "            echo '* *     * * *   root    service avahi-daemon restart > /dev/null' >> /etc/crontab" >> $babel_script
   echo '        fi' >> $babel_script
   echo '    fi' >> $babel_script
   echo '    if [ -f /bin/systemctl ]; then' >> $babel_script