Anacron - cron utility for desktop machines

Asheville Joe josephj at main.nc.us
Wed Sep 24 21:12:02 EDT 2003


It's in my bedroom/office.

Joe

Robert Todd wrote:

>Why do you turn your computer off every night?
>
>  
>
>>From: Asheville Joe <josephj at main.nc.us>
>>Date: 2003/09/24 Wed PM 03:57:08 EDT
>>To: NFLUG <nflug at nflug.org>
>>Subject: Anacron - cron utility for desktop machines
>>
>>I turn my computer off at night, etc., so cron jobs don't always get run 
>>when they should.  I found a utility called anacron that seems to be 
>>exactly what I want.
>>
>>I installed the latest Mandrake version - no problem.
>>
>>I *think* I understand how it works now.  It was pretty confusing when I 
>>first installed it.  Instead of being separate from cron, it works with 
>>it.  Since it took me a while to puzzle this out, I thought it might be 
>>interesting to others - especially since  this is a Linux on the desktop 
>>sort of thing and not for servers that run for years like many of you 
>>seem to work with.
>>
>>If I'm right about how this works, all you really have to do is install 
>>it like the rpm did for me and just forget about it.  From then on, 
>>either cron will do it's job or anacron will catch what it missed and 
>>run it.  The last piece of the puzzle was in  /etc/rc.d/init.d/anacron 
>>which  gets anacron to run in the first place as part of startup.
>>
>>Please take a look at this and correct me if I've made any errors.
>>
>>The sample anacrontab that was installed is: (I'm going to change 
>>SHELL=/bin/sh to /bin/bash.)
>>
>># /etc/anacrontab: configuration file for anacron
>>
>># See anacron(8) and anacrontab(5) for details.
>>
>>SHELL=/bin/sh
>>PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
>>
>># These entries are useful for a Mandrake system.
>>1    5    cron.daily        run-parts /etc/cron.daily
>>7    10    cron.weekly        run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
>>30    15    cron.monthly    run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
>>
>>The table format is Period (in days) |  Delay (in minutes) |  Job 
>>Identifier | Command
>>or Enviroment-variable=Value.
>>
>>That's simple enough.  I guess the rest of the line after the third 
>>field is the command e.g. "run-parts /etc/cron/daily".
>>What this does is run the daily, weekly, and monthly cron scripts using 
>>/usr/bin/run-parts.  However, it has a safety check to make sure things 
>>don't get run twice (by cron and then by anacron) - see below.
>>
>>I also looked at /etc/cron.daily .
>>In there is a file called 0anacron which contains:
>>
>>#!/bin/sh
>>#
>># anacron's cron script
>>#
>># This script updates anacron time stamps. It is called through run-parts
>># either by anacron itself or by cron.
>>#
>># The script is called "0anacron" to assure that it will be executed
>># _before_ all other scripts.
>>
>>anacron -u cron.daily
>>
>>What this does is tell anacron that cron got there first by updating 
>>anacron's timestamp files to today's date so it will think it's job 
>>"cron.daily" doesn't need to run.  Similar files are in cron.weekly and 
>>cron.monthly.
>>
>>Hope this was interesting.
>>
>>Joe
>>
>>
>>----------------------------------
>>
>>"The work of the poet comes to meet the spiritual need of the society in which he lives, and for this reason his work means more to him than his personal fate, whether he is aware of this or not." ~C.G. Jung, Modern Man In Search Of A Soul
>>
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>
>...
> - Robert Todd
> - Tier 1 TSR, Adelphia Communications
> - Buffalo, NY
>
>  
>

-- 

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