Bug#391836: debian-policy: New virtual package: cron-daemon

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Gerrit Pape <pape@smarden.org> writes:
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 01:43:57PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> I suspect that we need to document that packages may rely on @reboot,
>> @yearly, @monthly, @weekly, @daily, and @hourly, and also on the */2
>> syntax.  We also need to document that, contrary POSIX, files in
>> /etc/cron.d have seven fields instead of six, with the sixth field
>> naming the local user as which the cron job runs.  That's a common
>> error when writing cron.d files.
>> 
>> Do both of our proposed cron daemons support that same syntax?  (Does
>> anyone here use bcron to comment on that?)

> bcron supports the */n syntax, but not @reboot and the other @*.  See
> http://manpages.debian.net/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=bcrontab&sektion=5

Hm.  I wonder how many packages that ship cron.d files expect the @* stuff
to work.  If none, then maybe we should document that packages shouldn't
rely on it.

Everything other than @reboot is trivial to replace.  @reboot is a lot
trickier, although I suspect most packages use an init script.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>