unixdev.net


Switch to SpeakEasy.net DSL

The Modular Manual Browser

Home Page
Manual: (plan9)
Page:
Section:
Apropos / Subsearch:
optional field

CRON(8)                                                                CRON(8)



NAME
       cron - clock daemon

SYNOPSIS
       auth/cron [-c]

DESCRIPTION
       Cron  executes  commands  at  specified  dates  and  times according to
       instructions in the files /cron/user/cron.  It runs only on an  authen-
       tication  server.   Option  -c  causes  cron  to  create /cron/user and
       /cron/user/cron for the current user; it can be run  from  any  Plan  9
       machine.

       Blank  lines  and  lines  beginning  with # in these files are ignored.
       Entries are lines with fields

              minute hour day month weekday host command

       Command is a string, which may contain spaces, that  is  passed  to  an
       rc(1) running on host for execution.  The first five fields are integer
       patterns for

              minute         0-59

              hour           0-23

              day of month   1-31

              month of year  1-12

              day of week    0-6; 0=Sunday

       The syntax for these patterns is

              time  : '*'
                    | range
              range : number
                    | number '-' number
                    | range ',' range

       Each number must be in the appropriate range.  Hyphens  specify  inclu-
       sive ranges of valid times; commas specify lists of valid time ranges.

       To  run  the  job,  cron calls host and authenticates remote execution,
       equivalent to running rx host command (see con(1)).  The user's profile
       is run with $service set to rx.

       Cron  is  not a reliable service.  It skips commands if it cannot reach
       host within two minutes, or if the cron daemon is not  running  at  the
       appropriate time.

EXAMPLES
       Here is the job that mails system news.

              % cat /cron/upas/cron
              # send system news
              15 8-17, 21 ***     helix     /mail/lib/mailnews
              %

SOURCE
       /sys/src/cmd/auth/cron.c

SEE ALSO
       con(1), rc(1)



                                                                       CRON(8)