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

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@golden-gryphon.com> writes:

>         Are there any seconds to the proposal to create a virtual
>  package cron-daemon? The rationale is for packages like logratate,
>  which otherwise would need to depend on cron | anacron | fcron | bcron |
>  etc.

>         The requirements for providing cron-daemon are:
>  [ POSIX ]
>  - Has to provide /usr/bin/crontab and support crontab entries
>  [ Implemented in most Linux / BSD distributions, including Debian, but not
>    in Solaris, HP-UX or AIX's cron ]
>  - Correct execution of /etc/cron.d
>  - Correct support of /etc/crontab
>  - Correct support of /etc/cron.{allow,deny}
>  - Has to support 'crontab -u'
>  - Support of crontab entries with extended features (i.e. those in Vixie
>    Cron need to be supported), these include names for days and months,
>    ranges, step values and the 'special strings' (@reboot, @yearly..)
>  [ Debian-specific feature ]
>  - Correct execution of /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} 

I second the idea provided that we put all of the above into Policy so
that we clearly specify what a Debian cron system should provide.  I'd
like to see us do more of that.  If there's a virtual package, I suspect
that we frequently should be documenting in Policy what a package that
provides that virtual package should be doing.  And in the case of cron,
we already have section 9.5, so adding the additional bits about what we
expect from cron daemons isn't hard.

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