xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/at/at.man (revision b2c76c41be32f904179efed29c0ca04d53f3996c)
1.Dd August 11, 2018
2.Dt "AT" 1
3.Os
4.Sh NAME
5.Nm at ,
6.Nm batch ,
7.Nm atq ,
8.Nm atrm
9.Nd queue, examine or delete jobs for later execution
10.Sh SYNOPSIS
11.Nm at
12.Op Fl q Ar queue
13.Op Fl f Ar file
14.Op Fl mldbv
15.Ar time
16.Nm at
17.Op Fl q Ar queue
18.Op Fl f Ar file
19.Op Fl mldbv
20.Fl t
21.Sm off
22.Op Oo Ar CC Oc Ar YY
23.Ar MM DD hh mm Op . Ar SS
24.Sm on
25.Nm at
26.Fl c Ar job Op Ar job ...
27.Nm at
28.Fl l Op Ar job ...
29.Nm at
30.Fl l
31.Fl q Ar queue
32.Nm at
33.Fl r Ar job Op Ar job ...
34.Pp
35.Nm atq
36.Op Fl q Ar queue
37.Op Fl v
38.Pp
39.Nm atrm
40.Ar job
41.Op Ar job ...
42.Pp
43.Nm batch
44.Op Fl q Ar queue
45.Op Fl f Ar file
46.Op Fl mv
47.Op Ar time
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The
50.Nm at
51and
52.Nm batch
53utilities
54read commands from standard input or a specified file which are to
55be executed at a later time, using
56.Xr sh 1 .
57.Bl -tag -width indent
58.It Nm at
59executes commands at a specified time;
60.It Nm atq
61lists the user's pending jobs, unless the user is the superuser; in that
62case, everybody's jobs are listed;
63.It Nm atrm
64deletes jobs;
65.It Nm batch
66executes commands when system load levels permit; in other words, when
67the load average drops below _LOADAVG_MX times number of active CPUs,
68or 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 desired, the
216.Pa /etc/cron.d/at
217file can be edited and will be read by the system crontab, from which
218the
219.Ev SHELL
220and
221.Ev PATH
222environment variables are inherited.
223.Sh OPTIONS
224.Bl -tag -width indent
225.It Fl q Ar queue
226Use the specified queue.
227A queue designation consists of a single letter; valid queue designations
228range from
229.Ar a
230to
231.Ar z
232and
233.Ar A
234to
235.Ar Z .
236The
237.Ar _DEFAULT_AT_QUEUE
238queue is the default for
239.Nm
240and the
241.Ar _DEFAULT_BATCH_QUEUE
242queue for
243.Nm batch .
244Queues with higher letters run with increased niceness.
245If a job is submitted to a queue designated with an uppercase letter, it
246is treated as if it had been submitted to batch at that time.
247If
248.Nm atq
249is given a specific queue, it will only show jobs pending in that queue.
250.It Fl m
251Send mail to the user when the job has completed even if there was no
252output.
253.It Fl f Ar file
254Read the job from
255.Ar file
256rather than standard input.
257.It Fl l
258With no arguments, list all jobs for the invoking user.
259If one or more
260job numbers are given, list only those jobs.
261.It Fl d
262Is an alias for
263.Nm atrm
264(this option is deprecated; use
265.Fl r
266instead).
267.It Fl b
268Is an alias for
269.Nm batch .
270.It Fl v
271For
272.Nm atq ,
273shows completed but not yet deleted jobs in the queue; otherwise
274shows the time the job will be executed.
275.It Fl c
276Cat the jobs listed on the command line to standard output.
277.It Fl r
278Remove the specified jobs.
279.It Fl t
280Specify the job time using the \*[Px] time format.
281The argument should be in the form
282.Sm off
283.Op Oo Ar CC Oc Ar YY
284.Ar MM DD hh mm Op . Ar SS
285.Sm on
286where each pair of letters represents the following:
287.Pp
288.Bl -tag -width indent -compact -offset indent
289.It Ar CC
290The first two digits of the year (the century).
291.It Ar YY
292The second two digits of the year.
293.It Ar MM
294The month of the year, from 1 to 12.
295.It Ar DD
296the day of the month, from 1 to 31.
297.It Ar hh
298The hour of the day, from 0 to 23.
299.It Ar mm
300The minute of the hour, from 0 to 59.
301.It Ar SS
302The second of the minute, from 0 to 60.
303.El
304.Pp
305If the
306.Ar CC
307and
308.Ar YY
309letter pairs are not specified, the values default to the current
310year.
311If the
312.Ar SS
313letter pair is not specified, the value defaults to 0.
314.El
315.Sh FILES
316.Bl -tag -width _ATJOB_DIR/_LOCKFILE -compact
317.It Pa _ATJOB_DIR
318directory containing job files
319.It Pa _ATSPOOL_DIR
320directory containing output spool files
321.It Pa /var/run/utx.active
322login records
323.It Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
324allow permission control
325.It Pa _PERM_PATH/at.deny
326deny permission control
327.It Pa _ATJOB_DIR/_LOCKFILE
328job-creation lock file
329.El
330.Sh SEE ALSO
331.Xr nice 1 ,
332.Xr sh 1 ,
333.Xr umask 2 ,
334.Xr atrun 8 ,
335.Xr cron 8 ,
336.Xr sendmail 8
337.Sh AUTHORS
338.An -nosplit
339At was mostly written by
340.An Thomas Koenig Aq Mt ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de .
341The time parsing routines are by
342.An David Parsons Aq Mt orc@pell.chi.il.us ,
343with minor enhancements by
344.An Joe Halpin Aq Mt joe.halpin@attbi.com .
345.Sh BUGS
346If the file
347.Pa /var/run/utx.active
348is not available or corrupted, or if the user is not logged on at the
349time
350.Nm
351is invoked, the mail is sent to the userid found
352in the environment variable
353.Ev LOGNAME .
354If that is undefined or empty, the current userid is assumed.
355.Pp
356The
357.Nm at
358and
359.Nm batch
360utilities
361as presently implemented are not suitable when users are competing for
362resources.
363If this is the case, another batch system such as
364.Em nqs
365may be more suitable.
366.Pp
367Specifying a date past 2038 may not work on some systems.
368