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Diffstat (limited to 'usr.sbin/cron/cron.8')
| -rw-r--r-- | usr.sbin/cron/cron.8 | 63 |
1 files changed, 63 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/usr.sbin/cron/cron.8 b/usr.sbin/cron/cron.8 new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..c89398663e0c --- /dev/null +++ b/usr.sbin/cron/cron.8 @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +.\"/* Copyright 1988,1990,1993 by Paul Vixie +.\" * All rights reserved +.\" * +.\" * Distribute freely, except: don't remove my name from the source or +.\" * documentation (don't take credit for my work), mark your changes (don't +.\" * get me blamed for your possible bugs), don't alter or remove this +.\" * notice. May be sold if buildable source is provided to buyer. No +.\" * warrantee of any kind, express or implied, is included with this +.\" * software; use at your own risk, responsibility for damages (if any) to +.\" * anyone resulting from the use of this software rests entirely with the +.\" * user. +.\" * +.\" * Send bug reports, bug fixes, enhancements, requests, flames, etc., and +.\" * I'll try to keep a version up to date. I can be reached as follows: +.\" * Paul Vixie <paul@vix.com> uunet!decwrl!vixie!paul +.\" */ +.\" +.\" $Header: /home/cvs/386BSD/src/usr.sbin/cron/cron.8,v 1.1.2.1 1994/05/01 16:09:33 jkh Exp $ +.\" +.\" From Id: cron.8,v 2.2 1993/12/28 08:34:43 vixie Exp +.\" +.TH CRON 8 "20 December 1993" +.UC 4 +.SH NAME +cron \- daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron) +.SH SYNOPSIS +cron +.SH DESCRIPTION +.I Cron +should be started from /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local. It will return immediately, +so you don't need to start it with '&'. +.PP +.I Cron +searches /var/cron/tabs for crontab files which are named after accounts in +/etc/passwd; crontabs found are loaded into memory. +.I Cron +also searches for /etc/crontab which is in a different format (see +.IR crontab(5)). +.I Cron +then wakes up every minute, examining all stored crontabs, checking each +command to see if it should be run in the current minute. When executing +commands, any output is mailed to the owner of the crontab (or to the user +named in the MAILTO environment variable in the crontab, if such exists). +.PP +Additionally, +.I cron +checks each minute to see if its spool directory's modtime (or the modtime +on +.IR /etc/crontab) +has changed, and if it has, +.I cron +will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload those which have +changed. Thus +.I cron +need not be restarted whenever a crontab file is modified. Note that the +.IR Crontab (1) +command updates the modtime of the spool directory whenever it changes a +crontab. +.SH "SEE ALSO" +crontab(1), crontab(5) +.SH AUTHOR +.nf +Paul Vixie <paul@vix.com> |