[gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[Steve [Gentoo]]

Because I need my Gentoo server to perform periodic tasks on my behalf I 
new I needed some implementation of "cron" - and after a brief 
investigation I settled on fcron as I liked the idea that I could give 
flexible scheduling in order to allow the OS to delay processing in the 
event of heavy system load.  I've written a couple of my own 
administration tasks (to be run as my own non-root user) and these work 
fine.

I've noticed the directories /etc/cron.daily; /etc/cron.hourly; 
/etc/cron.monthly etc. and therein a bunch of non-user-specific 
administration tasks... For example, in ./etc/cron.daily I've 
logrotate.cron and rulesdujour - but none of these appear to have run in 
the last month.  Are thse system tasks supposed to be fired 
automatically by fcron?  What would be the easiest way to get all my 
periodic system administration tasks defined in these directories to be 
fired automatically?  Did I make a sensible choice with fcron?



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Re: [gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[Hans-Werner Hilse]

Hi,

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:06:29 +0100
"Steve [Gentoo]" <gentoo_steve@shic.co.uk> wrote:

> I've noticed the directories /etc/cron.daily; /etc/cron.hourly; 
> /etc/cron.monthly etc. and therein a bunch of non-user-specific 
> administration tasks... For example, in ./etc/cron.daily I've 
> logrotate.cron and rulesdujour - but none of these appear to have run in 
> the last month.  Are thse system tasks supposed to be fired 
> automatically by fcron?  What would be the easiest way to get all my 
> periodic system administration tasks defined in these directories to be 
> fired automatically?  Did I make a sensible choice with fcron?

Can't tell much about fcron (esp. if its config syntax is similar to my
vixie-cron), but for me, vixie-cron installed a /etc/crontab that
contains the following lines:

0  *  * * *     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly
1  3  * * *     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.daily
15 4  * * 6     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.weekly
30 5  1 * *     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.monthly
*/10  *  * * *  root    test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons

this does the job.

-hwh
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RE: [gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[Dave Nebinger]

> Are thse system tasks supposed to be fired
> automatically by fcron?

You missed the message that flew by when emerging fcron...

Fcron includes the /etc/cron.* directories but does not install cron jobs
for them automatically, and it does not support /etc/crontab (as other crons
do).

You need to manually add them to the root crontab.  Easiest way would be to:

1. su - (or login as root).
2. crontab -l root > root.crontab (to get any existing cron entries for
root).
3. vi root.crontab and add the following:

# Clean the lastrun directories...
0  *  * * *      rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly
1  3  * * *      rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.daily
15 4  * * 6      rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.weekly
30 5  1 * *      rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.monthly

# Now do the command to determine what tasks need to be executed
# Only generate emails on errors...
!nolog(true)
*/10  *  * * *      /usr/bin/test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons &&
/usr/sbin/run-crons

4. crontab root.crontab (to make the changes take effect)

This will install the appropriate cron jobs to have the /etc/cron.* scripts
run.

Dave



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RE: [gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[Dave Nebinger]

> 
> # Now do the command to determine what tasks need to be executed
> # Only generate emails on errors...
> !nolog(true)

Oops, this nolog bit comes from my crontab and is not normally put in.  I
added it because I hated getting emails for regular runs.  If you choose to
include it, add "!reset" to the line after the run-crons line of the text I
sent.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[Bob Sanders]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:06:29 +0100
"Steve [Gentoo]" <gentoo_steve@shic.co.uk> wrote:

ne.
> 
> I've noticed the directories /etc/cron.daily; /etc/cron.hourly; 
> /etc/cron.monthly etc. and therein a bunch of non-user-specific 
> administration tasks... For example, in ./etc/cron.daily I've 
> logrotate.cron and rulesdujour - but none of these appear to have run in 
> the last month.  Are thse system tasks supposed to be fired 
> automatically by fcron? 

Yes.  In the ebuild it says -

        einfo "To activate /etc/cron.{hourly|daily|weekly|montly} please run: "
        einfo "crontab /etc/crontab"

>  What would be the easiest way to get all my 
> periodic system administration tasks defined in these directories to be 
> fired automatically?  Did I make a sensible choice with fcron?
> 

I just add the tasks to s specific script in the appropriate account and insure the
script is executable.  It all works fine with fcron.

Bob
-  
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Re: [gentoo-user] Daily dumb question... chron.

[Steve [Gentoo]]

Bob Sanders wrote:

>>Are thse system tasks supposed to be fired automatically by fcron? 
>>    
>>
>Yes.  In the ebuild it says -
>        einfo "To activate /etc/cron.{hourly|daily|weekly|montly} please run: "
>        einfo "crontab /etc/crontab"
>  
>
I hadn't seen that message - but then again, when I installed fcron the 
/etc/cron.* stuff wasn't especially important to me... so I might easily 
have ignored it at the time.  It's a pity this sort of "essential" 
warning isn't available for all packages as some kind of Gentoo 
knowledge base - I guess I could read the ebuild files - but it would be 
far more convenient to have tips/tricks/gotchas available annotated with 
each package - say on http://packages.gentoo.org/...  Hmmm.

In any case, thanks - "crontab /etc/crontab" seems the perfect resolution.

Steve

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