Anacron - when it's triggered

[James Michael Fultz]

* Brian McKee <brian.mckee at gmail.com> [2009-11-12 12:49 -0500]:
> I want to make sure I'm understanding this and not missing something.
> 
> On a default hardy install anacron runs
> a - when entering runlevels 2,3,4,5 (e.g. on bootup)(see /etc/rcX.d)
> b - on acpi or apm resume if on ac power (see /etc/acpi/resume.d
> /etc/apm/event.d)
> c - No other time unless specified in the crontab!
> 
> In other words, the hardy crontab entry of
>    25 18	* * *	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts
> --report /etc/cron.daily )
> says "if anacron is installed, let it deal with cron.daily, otherwise
> run at 6.25pm"
> and anacron will only check on bootup or resume from suspend if it
> should be running cron.daily,
> So, if the machine never sleeps or reboots, cron.daily never runs.
> Right?

It would seem so until you look at '/etc/cron.d/anacron' and see that it
schedules daily invocation of anacron.

> I'm thinking of removing the test for anacron from crontab so I get
> consistant run times when possible, and anacron just catches the
> missed runs (because the machine was off etc)

Doesn't hurt anything either way.  Myself, I would just leave it as it
is.