1.\" Copyright (c) 1997 FreeBSD, Inc. 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 13.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 14.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 15.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 16.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 17.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 18.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 19.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 20.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 21.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 22.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 23.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 24.\" 25.\" $FreeBSD$ 26.\" 27.Dd 13 August 1997 28.Os FreeBSD 3.0 29.Dt PERIODIC 8 30.Sh NAME 31.Nm periodic 32.Nd 33run periodic system functions 34.Sh SYNOPSIS 35.Nm periodic 36.Ao 37.Cm daily | weekly | monthly | 38.Ar path Op path ... 39.Ac 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Nm 43program is intended to be called by cron(8) to execute shell scripts 44located in the specified directory. 45.Pp 46One, and only one, of the following arguments should be specified: 47.Bl -tag -width Fl 48.It Cm daily 49Perform the standard daily periodic executable run. 50This usually occurs early in the morning (local time). 51.It Cm weekly 52Perform the standard weekly periodic executable run. 53This usually occurs on Sunday mornings. 54.It Cm monthly 55Perform the standard monthly periodic executable run. 56This usually occurs on the first day of the month. 57.It Ar path 58An absolute path to a directory containing a set of executables to be run. 59.El 60.Pp 61The 62.Nm 63program will run each executable file in the directory or directories 64specified. If a file does not have the executable bit set, it will be 65ignored silently. 66.Sh ENVIRONMENT 67The 68.Nm 69command sets the 70.Ev PATH 71environment to include all standard system directories, but no additional 72directories, such as 73.Pa /usr/local/bin . 74If executables are added which depend upon other path components, each 75executable must be responsible for configuring its own appropriate environment. 76.Sh FILES 77.Bl -tag -width /etc/periodic 78.It Pa /etc/crontab 79The 80.Nm 81program is typically called via entries in the system default cron table. 82.It Pa /etc/periodic 83The top level directory containing 84.Pa daily , 85.Pa weekly , 86and 87.Pa monthly 88subdirectories which contain standard system periodic executables. 89.It Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf 90The 91.Pa periodic.conf 92system registry contains a variable 93.Va local_periodic 94which may be configured to specify additional top level standard 95periodic directories, such as 96.Pa /usr/local/etc/periodic 97and 98.Pa /usr/X11R6/etc/periodic . 99.El 100.Sh EXAMPLES 101The system crontab should have entries for 102.Nm 103similar to the following example: 104.Pp 105.Dl # do daily/weekly/monthly maintenance 106.Dl 0 2 * * * root periodic daily 2>&1 107.Dl 0 3 * * 6 root periodic weekly 2>&1 108.Dl 0 5 1 * * root periodic monthly 2>&1 109.Pp 110Additionally, the 111.Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf 112system registry will typically have a 113.Va local_periodic 114variable reading: 115.Pp 116.Dl local_periodic="/usr/local/etc/periodic /usr/X11R6/etc/periodic" 117.Sh SEE ALSO 118.Xr sh 1 , 119.Xr crontab 5 , 120.Xr periodic.conf 5 , 121.Xr cron 8 122.Rs 123.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 124Exit status is 0 on success and 1 if the command 125fails for one of the following reasons: 126.Bl -diag 127.It usage: periodic <directory of files to execute> 128No directory path argument was passed to 129.Nm 130to specify where the script fragments reside. 131.It <directory> not found 132Self explanatory. 133.El 134.Sh HISTORY 135The 136.Nm 137program first appeared in 138.Fx 3.0 . 139.Sh AUTHORS 140.An Paul Traina Aq pst@FreeBSD.org 141