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Re: cron jobs more often than daily



I currently see three practical solutions out of the dilemma (that
/etc/crontab is edited by the sysadmin and scripts): 

  (a) We set up another crontab (say /etc/crontab.deb) which is maintained
      by install-cronjob only. The current /etc/crontab will stay a
      conffile and only be touched by the sysadmin.

      Disadvantage: The sysadmin might want to remove (or change) an entry 
      of /etc/crontab.deb too, so we didn't solve any problems.

  (b) We set up a certain directory (say /usr/lib/cronjobs) where each
      package can install its own crontab file (/usr/lib/cronjobs/foo).

      Disadvantage: See above.

  (c) We split /etc/crontab into two "areas". The install-cronjob script
      will only touch one area, while the sysadmin can touch both. For
      example:

          # /etc/crontab
          # Sysadmin's private area: Do whatever you like to do here.
          # Nothing will be changed automatically...
          * * * * *  root  rm -rf /
          # (I hope noone installs this crontab :)
          # ----------------------------------------------------------
          # automatic area: You can do changes to this area, but packages
          # might add or remove new entries via install-cronjob
          # ---entry from package foo1---
          * * * * *  root  something
          # ---entry from package foo2---
          ....

      This keep all cronjobs in a single file which makes life easier for
      the sysadmin, I think.

      Note, that the install-cronjob script should be smart enough to
      handle commented-out cron entries correctly (they should stay
      commented-out during package upgrades).


Comments?


Thanks,

Chris

--                  Christian Schwarz
                     schwarz@monet.m.isar.de, schwarz@schwarz-online.com,
Debian has a logo!    schwarz@debian.org, schwarz@mathematik.tu-muenchen.de
                    
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pages at  http://fatman.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/~schwarz/debian-logo/


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