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