86 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
86 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
$FreeBSD$
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Conversion of BSD 4.[23] crontab files:
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Edit your current crontab (/usr/lib/crontab) into little pieces, with each
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users' commands in a different file. This is different on 4.2 and 4.3,
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but I'll get to that below. The biggest feature of this cron is that you
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can move 'news' and 'uucp' cron commands into files owned and maintainable
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by those two users. You also get to rip all the fancy 'su' footwork out
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of the cron commands. On 4.3, there's no need for the 'su' stuff since the
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user name appears on each command -- but I'd still rather have separate
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crontabs with separate environments and so on.
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Leave the original /usr/lib/crontab! This cron doesn't use it, so you may
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as well keep it around for a while in case something goes wakko with this
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fancy version.
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Most commands in most crontabs are run by root, have to run by root, and
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should continue to be run by root. They still have to be in their own file;
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I recommend /etc/crontab.src or /usr/adm/crontab.src.
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'uucp's commands need their own file; how about /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.src?
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'news' also, perhaps in /usr/lib/news/crontab.src...
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I say `how about' and `perhaps' because it really doesn't matter to anyone
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(except you) where you put the crontab source files. The `crontab' command
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COPIES them into a protected directory (CRONDIR/SPOOL_DIR in cron.h), named
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after the user whose crontab it is. If you want to examine, replace, or
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delete a crontab, the `crontab' command does all of those things. The
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various `crontab.src' (my suggested name for them) files are just source
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files---they have to be copied to SPOOLDIR using `crontab' before they'll be
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executed.
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On 4.2, your crontab might have a few lines like this:
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5 * * * * su uucp < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr
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10 4 * * * su uucp < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day
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15 5 * * 0 su uucp < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.wk
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...or like this:
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5 * * * * echo /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr | su uucp
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10 4 * * * echo /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day | su uucp
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15 5 * * 0 echo /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.wk | su uucp
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On 4.3, they'd look a little bit better, but not much:
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5 * * * * uucp /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr
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10 4 * * * uucp /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day
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15 5 * * 0 uucp /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.wk
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For this cron, you'd create /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.src (or wherever you want
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to keep uucp's commands) which would look like this:
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# /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.src - uucp's crontab
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#
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PATH=/usr/lib/uucp:/bin:/usr/bin
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SHELL=/bin/sh
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HOME=/usr/lib/uucp
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#
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5 * * * * uudemon.hr
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10 4 * * * uudemon.day
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15 5 * * 0 uudemon.wk
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The application to the `news' cron commands (if any) is left for you to
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figure out. Likewise if there are any other cruddy-looking 'su' commands in
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your crontab commands, you don't need them anymore: just find a good place
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to put the `crontab.src' (or whatever you want to call it) file for that
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user, put the cron commands into it, and install it using the `crontab'
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command (probably with "-u USERNAME", but see the man page).
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If you run a 4.2-derived cron, you could of course just install your current
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crontab in toto as root's crontab. It would work exactly the way your
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current one does, barring the extra steps in installing or changing it.
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There would still be advantages to this cron, mostly that you get mail if
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there is any output from your cron commands.
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One note about getting mail from cron: you will probably find, after you
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install this version of cron, that your cron commands are generating a lot
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of irritating output. The work-around for this is to redirect all EXPECTED
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output to a per-execution log file, which you can examine if you want to
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see the output from the "last time" a command was executed; if you get any
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UNEXPECTED output, it will be mailed to you. This takes a while to get
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right, but it's amazingly convenient. Trust me.
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