1$FreeBSD$ 2 3Conversion of BSD 4.[23] crontab files: 4 5Edit your current crontab (/usr/lib/crontab) into little pieces, with each 6users' commands in a different file. This is different on 4.2 and 4.3, 7but I'll get to that below. The biggest feature of this cron is that you 8can move 'news' and 'uucp' cron commands into files owned and maintainable 9by those two users. You also get to rip all the fancy 'su' footwork out 10of the cron commands. On 4.3, there's no need for the 'su' stuff since the 11user name appears on each command -- but I'd still rather have separate 12crontabs with separate environments and so on. 13 14Leave the original /usr/lib/crontab! This cron doesn't use it, so you may 15as well keep it around for a while in case something goes wakko with this 16fancy version. 17 18Most commands in most crontabs are run by root, have to run by root, and 19should continue to be run by root. They still have to be in their own file; 20I recommend /etc/crontab.src or /usr/adm/crontab.src. 21 22'uucp's commands need their own file; how about /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.src? 23'news' also, perhaps in /usr/lib/news/crontab.src... 24 25I say `how about' and `perhaps' because it really doesn't matter to anyone 26(except you) where you put the crontab source files. The `crontab' command 27COPIES them into a protected directory (CRONDIR/SPOOL_DIR in cron.h), named 28after the user whose crontab it is. If you want to examine, replace, or 29delete a crontab, the `crontab' command does all of those things. The 30various `crontab.src' (my suggested name for them) files are just source 31files---they have to be copied to SPOOLDIR using `crontab' before they'll be 32executed. 33 34On 4.2, your crontab might have a few lines like this: 35 36 5 * * * * su uucp < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr 37 10 4 * * * su uucp < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day 38 15 5 * * 0 su uucp < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.wk 39 40...or like this: 41 42 5 * * * * echo /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr | su uucp 43 10 4 * * * echo /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day | su uucp 44 15 5 * * 0 echo /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.wk | su uucp 45 46On 4.3, they'd look a little bit better, but not much: 47 48 5 * * * * uucp /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr 49 10 4 * * * uucp /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day 50 15 5 * * 0 uucp /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.wk 51 52For this cron, you'd create /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.src (or wherever you want 53to keep uucp's commands) which would look like this: 54 55 # /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.src - uucp's crontab 56 # 57 PATH=/usr/lib/uucp:/bin:/usr/bin 58 SHELL=/bin/sh 59 HOME=/usr/lib/uucp 60 # 61 5 * * * * uudemon.hr 62 10 4 * * * uudemon.day 63 15 5 * * 0 uudemon.wk 64 65The application to the `news' cron commands (if any) is left for you to 66figure out. Likewise if there are any other cruddy-looking 'su' commands in 67your crontab commands, you don't need them anymore: just find a good place 68to put the `crontab.src' (or whatever you want to call it) file for that 69user, put the cron commands into it, and install it using the `crontab' 70command (probably with "-u USERNAME", but see the man page). 71 72If you run a 4.2-derived cron, you could of course just install your current 73crontab in toto as root's crontab. It would work exactly the way your 74current one does, barring the extra steps in installing or changing it. 75There would still be advantages to this cron, mostly that you get mail if 76there is any output from your cron commands. 77 78One note about getting mail from cron: you will probably find, after you 79install this version of cron, that your cron commands are generating a lot 80of irritating output. The work-around for this is to redirect all EXPECTED 81output to a per-execution log file, which you can examine if you want to 82see the output from the "last time" a command was executed; if you get any 83UNEXPECTED output, it will be mailed to you. This takes a while to get 84right, but it's amazingly convenient. Trust me. 85 86