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Re: [PROPOSAL] Cron jobs



On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Kurt Wall wrote:

> > configuration file. This file uses the same syntax as /etc/crontab and
> > is processed by cron automatically. (Note, that scripts in the
> > /etc/cron.d directory are not handled by anacron. Thus, you should
> > only use this directory for jobs which may be skipped if the system is
> > not running.)
> 
> Why not just put the /etc/cron.daily|weekly|monthly tables into
> /etc/cron.d, too?  What does this buy the spec?  Or the user, for that
> matter?  Drop it all into cron.d and you look one place and one place
> only.  It seems simpler.

No, it is not simpler. It is one thing to drop a 10k shell script in
/etc/cron.daily just as a shell script and not worry about crontab format,
and is another thing to make that shell script fit under /etc/crontab
syntax. And any sort of hack it is just plain ugly. The /etc/cron.d is
intended for simple one line commands, while /etc/cron.daily can possibly
include shell scripts that are configurable by the user.

> >  - do we require anacron in the standard base system?
> 
> No.  What is the rationale?  Vixie cron works just fine, except, perhaps
> that it assumes a box is up 24x7.  If a box isn't up 24x7, why is it so
> critical to specify anacron?

Yeah, right. tell that to a laptop user and see what kind of feedback you
get from him. Anacron is so much nicer and requires virtually no effort
for integration, while providing many advantages.

> Leading with my chin, I ask "Have emerged as de-facto Linux standards"?  
> for whom?  News to me.

It's been around for a long time and believe it or not, distribution
maintainers do think of it as a de facto standard.

Cristian
--
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Cristian Gafton   --   gafton@redhat.com   --   Red Hat Software, Inc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 UNIX is user friendly. It's just selective about who its friends are.


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