xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/at/at.man (revision 2f02600abfddfc4e9f20dd384a2e729b451e16bd)
1.\" $FreeBSD$
2.Dd January 13, 2002
3.Dt "AT" 1
4.Os
5.Sh NAME
6.Nm at ,
7.Nm batch ,
8.Nm atq ,
9.Nm atrm
10.Nd queue, examine or delete jobs for later execution
11.Sh SYNOPSIS
12.Nm at
13.Op Fl q Ar queue
14.Op Fl f Ar file
15.Op Fl mldbv
16.Ar time
17.Nm at
18.Op Fl q Ar queue
19.Op Fl f Ar file
20.Op Fl mldbv
21.Fl t
22.Sm off
23.Op Oo Ar CC Oc Ar YY
24.Ar MM DD hh mm Op . Ar SS
25.Sm on
26.Nm at
27.Fl c Ar job Op Ar job ...
28.Nm at
29.Fl l Op Ar job ...
30.Nm at
31.Fl l
32.Fl q Ar queue
33.Nm at
34.Fl r Ar job Op Ar job ...
35.Pp
36.Nm atq
37.Op Fl q Ar queue
38.Op Fl v
39.Pp
40.Nm atrm
41.Ar job
42.Op Ar job ...
43.Pp
44.Nm batch
45.Op Fl q Ar queue
46.Op Fl f Ar file
47.Op Fl mv
48.Op Ar time
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Nm at
52and
53.Nm batch
54utilities
55read commands from standard input or a specified file which are to
56be executed at a later time, using
57.Xr sh 1 .
58.Bl -tag -width indent
59.It Nm at
60executes commands at a specified time;
61.It Nm atq
62lists the user's pending jobs, unless the user is the superuser; in that
63case, everybody's jobs are listed;
64.It Nm atrm
65deletes jobs;
66.It Nm batch
67executes commands when system load levels permit; in other words, when the load average
68drops below _LOADAVG_MX, or the value specified in the invocation of
69.Nm atrun .
70.El
71.Pp
72The
73.Nm at
74utility allows some moderately complex
75.Ar time
76specifications.
77It accepts times of the form
78.Ar HHMM
79or
80.Ar HH:MM
81to run a job at a specific time of day.
82(If that time is already past, the next day is assumed.)
83As an alternative, the following keywords may be specified:
84.Em midnight ,
85.Em noon ,
86or
87.Em teatime
88(4pm)
89and time-of-day may be suffixed with
90.Em AM
91or
92.Em PM
93for running in the morning or the evening.
94The day on which the job is to be run may also be specified
95by giving a date in the form
96.Ar \%month-name day
97with an optional
98.Ar year ,
99or giving a date of the forms
100.Ar DD.MM.YYYY ,
101.Ar DD.MM.YY ,
102.Ar MM/DD/YYYY ,
103.Ar MM/DD/YY ,
104.Ar MMDDYYYY , or
105.Ar MMDDYY .
106The specification of a date must follow the specification of
107the time of day.
108Time can also be specified as:
109.Op Em now
110.Em + Ar count \%time-units ,
111where the time-units can be
112.Em minutes ,
113.Em hours ,
114.Em days ,
115.Em weeks ,
116.Em months
117or
118.Em years
119and
120.Nm
121may be told to run the job today by suffixing the time with
122.Em today
123and to run the job tomorrow by suffixing the time with
124.Em tomorrow .
125.Pp
126For example, to run a job at 4pm three days from now, use
127.Nm at Ar 4pm + 3 days ,
128to run a job at 10:00am on July 31, use
129.Nm at Ar 10am Jul 31
130and to run a job at 1am tomorrow, use
131.Nm at Ar 1am tomorrow .
132.Pp
133The
134.Nm at
135utility also supports the
136.Tn POSIX
137time format (see
138.Fl t
139option).
140.Pp
141For both
142.Nm
143and
144.Nm batch ,
145commands are read from standard input or the file specified
146with the
147.Fl f
148option and executed.
149The working directory, the environment (except for the variables
150.Ev TERM ,
151.Ev TERMCAP ,
152.Ev DISPLAY
153and
154.Em _ )
155and the
156.Ar umask
157are retained from the time of invocation.
158An
159.Nm
160or
161.Nm batch
162command invoked from a
163.Xr su 1
164shell will retain the current userid.
165The user will be mailed standard error and standard output from his
166commands, if any.
167Mail will be sent using the command
168.Xr sendmail 8 .
169If
170.Nm
171is executed from a
172.Xr su 1
173shell, the owner of the login shell will receive the mail.
174.Pp
175The superuser may use these commands in any case.
176For other users, permission to use
177.Nm
178is determined by the files
179.Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
180and
181.Pa _PERM_PATH/at.deny .
182.Pp
183If the file
184.Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
185exists, only usernames mentioned in it are allowed to use
186.Nm .
187In these two files, a user is considered to be listed only if the user
188name has no blank or other characters before it on its line and a
189newline character immediately after the name, even at the end of
190the file.
191Other lines are ignored and may be used for comments.
192.Pp
193If
194.Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
195does not exist,
196.Pa _PERM_PATH/at.deny
197is checked, every username not mentioned in it is then allowed
198to use
199.Nm .
200.Pp
201If neither exists, only the superuser is allowed use of
202.Nm .
203This is the default configuration.
204.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
205Note that
206.Nm
207is implemented through the
208.Xr cron 8
209daemon by calling
210.Xr atrun 8
211every five minutes.
212This implies that the granularity of
213.Nm
214might not be optimal for every deployment.
215If a finer granularity is needed, the system crontab at
216.Pa /etc/crontab
217needs to be changed.
218.Sh OPTIONS
219.Bl -tag -width indent
220.It Fl q Ar queue
221Use the specified queue.
222A queue designation consists of a single letter; valid queue designations
223range from
224.Ar a
225to
226.Ar z
227and
228.Ar A
229to
230.Ar Z .
231The
232.Ar _DEFAULT_AT_QUEUE
233queue is the default for
234.Nm
235and the
236.Ar _DEFAULT_BATCH_QUEUE
237queue for
238.Nm batch .
239Queues with higher letters run with increased niceness.
240If a job is submitted to a queue designated with an uppercase letter, it
241is treated as if it had been submitted to batch at that time.
242If
243.Nm atq
244is given a specific queue, it will only show jobs pending in that queue.
245.It Fl m
246Send mail to the user when the job has completed even if there was no
247output.
248.It Fl f Ar file
249Read the job from
250.Ar file
251rather than standard input.
252.It Fl l
253With no arguments, list all jobs for the invoking user.
254If one or more
255job numbers are given, list only those jobs.
256.It Fl d
257Is an alias for
258.Nm atrm
259(this option is deprecated; use
260.Fl r
261instead).
262.It Fl b
263Is an alias for
264.Nm batch .
265.It Fl v
266For
267.Nm atq ,
268shows completed but not yet deleted jobs in the queue; otherwise
269shows the time the job will be executed.
270.It Fl c
271Cat the jobs listed on the command line to standard output.
272.It Fl r
273Remove the specified jobs.
274.It Fl t
275Specify the job time using the \*[Px] time format.
276The argument should be in the form
277.Sm off
278.Op Oo Ar CC Oc Ar YY
279.Ar MM DD hh mm Op . Ar SS
280.Sm on
281where each pair of letters represents the following:
282.Pp
283.Bl -tag -width indent -compact -offset indent
284.It Ar CC
285The first two digits of the year (the century).
286.It Ar YY
287The second two digits of the year.
288.It Ar MM
289The month of the year, from 1 to 12.
290.It Ar DD
291the day of the month, from 1 to 31.
292.It Ar hh
293The hour of the day, from 0 to 23.
294.It Ar mm
295The minute of the hour, from 0 to 59.
296.It Ar SS
297The second of the minute, from 0 to 61.
298.El
299.Pp
300If the
301.Ar CC
302and
303.Ar YY
304letter pairs are not specified, the values default to the current
305year.
306If the
307.Ar SS
308letter pair is not specified, the value defaults to 0.
309.El
310.Sh FILES
311.Bl -tag -width _ATJOB_DIR/_LOCKFILE -compact
312.It Pa _ATJOB_DIR
313directory containing job files
314.It Pa _ATSPOOL_DIR
315directory containing output spool files
316.It Pa /var/run/utx.active
317login records
318.It Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
319allow permission control
320.It Pa _PERM_PATH/at.deny
321deny permission control
322.It Pa _ATJOB_DIR/_LOCKFILE
323job-creation lock file
324.El
325.Sh SEE ALSO
326.Xr nice 1 ,
327.Xr sh 1 ,
328.Xr umask 2 ,
329.Xr atrun 8 ,
330.Xr cron 8 ,
331.Xr sendmail 8
332.Sh AUTHORS
333At was mostly written by
334.An Thomas Koenig Aq ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de .
335The time parsing routines are by
336.An David Parsons Aq orc@pell.chi.il.us ,
337with minor enhancements by
338.An Joe Halpin Aq joe.halpin@attbi.com .
339.Sh BUGS
340If the file
341.Pa /var/run/utx.active
342is not available or corrupted, or if the user is not logged on at the
343time
344.Nm
345is invoked, the mail is sent to the userid found
346in the environment variable
347.Ev LOGNAME .
348If that is undefined or empty, the current userid is assumed.
349.Pp
350The
351.Nm at
352and
353.Nm batch
354utilities
355as presently implemented are not suitable when users are competing for
356resources.
357If this is the case, another batch system such as
358.Em nqs
359may be more suitable.
360.Pp
361Specifying a date past 2038 may not work on some systems.
362