cron/anacron

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 11 May 2006 15:13, Frank McCormick wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2006 21:21:29 +0200
>
> Alan McKinnon <alan at linuxholdings.co.za> wrote:
> > There is no problem with cron and anacron, the problem is that
> > you have not thought it through. How does anacron know when to
> > run, and what starts it? Easy! It is run once an hour... from
> > cron! Once an hour the system checks for tasks that were skipped.
> >
> > cron's config file is /etc/crontab
> > anacron's config file is /etc/anacrontab
> > The /etc/cron.*ly files have nothing whatsoever to do with cron
> > or anacron. They are config files for run-parts (a convenient way
> > to run several scripts rather than individual cron entries for
> > each. Both cron and anacron run run-parts to do their thing.
>
>    Sorry for the double reply but I just noticed there is no job
> entry in anacrontab for cron.hourly. There are entries for
> cron.daily, cron.weekly and cron.monthly. Is this why some job(s)
> never run ??

That's quite common actually. Most system tasks are fine if run daily, 
and the infrastructure is there to do tasks hourly if you want it. 
Ubuntu seems to have taken the same view as most other distros, and 
not set up any hourly anacrons.

You can set it up if you want - add the appropriate line to 
anacrontab, write a script to do the task you want and put it in 
cron.hourly.

>
> --
> Cheers
>
> Frank

-- 
If only me, you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five