PW#5-3: How packages can register cron jobs
[This mail is part of Debian Policy Weekly issue #5]
Topic 3: How packages can register cron jobs
STATE: APPROVAL
The current policy does not allow packages to touch /etc/crontab anymore.
This is because we don't allow packages to modify other packages
configuration files.
Thus, currently packages can either place a file into one of the
/etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly} directories or ask the cron maintainer to
include an entry for their package in the cron package.
Since a few packages have to register cron jobs which need to be run more
often than `daily', the cron package has been changed to read all files in
/etc/cron.d too and interpret these as additions to /etc/crontab. With that,
every package can include a conffile /etc/cron.d/<pkg> which contains the
necessary cron jobs.
Unless someone objects, I'll update the policy manual to describe this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: