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Re: Should packages depend on cron?



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On 23 Jul 1997, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

> 	Does anacron work for people who do have their machines up all
>  the time? can it be used to replace cron entirely? Is it stable?

Yes, no, and yes.

Or to elaborate, anacron is a package that, when run, will check each of
the jobs in its config file and check if they have been run within the
number of days specified.  If not, it forks them to run in the background,
otherwise it *exits*.  It needs run again, usually at system startup and
perhaps within a cron job that happens once a day.  For example, here are
my crontab and anacrontab files:

- --- clip ---
# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file.
# This file also has a username field, that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user	command
#42 6	* * *	root	run-parts /etc/cron.daily
#47 6	* * 7	root	run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
#52 6	1 * *	root	run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
#* *	* * *	root	atrun -d -l 0.5
0 4	* * *	root	/usr/bin/anacron
- --- clip ---
# /etc/anacrontab: configuration file for anacron

# See anacron(8) and anacrontab(5) for details.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# These entries are useful for a Debian system.
# Note that you should remove the corresponding lines from
# /etc/crontab before activating these lines.
1	10	cron.daily	run-parts /etc/cron.daily
7	15	cron.weekly	run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
30	20	cron.monthly	run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
- --- end ---

Anacron works well with cron to make sure that the cron.* scripts get run
at reasonably regular intervals, even if I turn off my machine.  It
doesn't replace the granularity of cron useful for other tasks, such as
queuing mail and news delivery while the machine is up and so forth.

- -- 
                          |       You are never given a wish without also
     Scott K. Ellis       |        being given the power to make it true.
     storm@gate.net       |        You may have to work for it, however.
                          |                     -- Illusions

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