73 lines
3.3 KiB
Text
73 lines
3.3 KiB
Text
GNU mcron --- README -*-text-*-
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Copyright (C) 2003, 2005, 2006, 2012, 2014 Dale Mellor
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Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
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are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
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notice and this notice are preserved.
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This is version 1.0.8 of the GNU mcron program. It is designed and written by
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Dale Mellor, and replaces and hugely enhances Vixie cron. It is functionally
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complete, production quality code (did you expect less?), but has not received
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much testing yet. It has only been built on a GNU/Linux system, and will most
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likely fail on others (but you never know...).
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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IMPORTANT NOTICES
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Read the BUGS file.
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Do not (yet) install this software on a machine which relies for its
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functioning on its current set of crontabs.
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For use as a replacement cron daemon on a system, the package must be installed
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by root.
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Before installing this package for the first time, it is necessary to terminate
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any running cron daemons on your system. If your old cron is not Vixie or
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accurately Vixie compatible (files in /var/cron/tabs*, /var/cron/allow,
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/var/cron/deny, /etc/crontab, /var/run/cron.pid) then you will need to clear out
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all old crontabs and make new ones afresh - or else look very carefully at the
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options you pass to the package configure script, as follows.
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It is often the case that GNU/Linux distributions and other Unices hacked the
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cron daemon to use different directories to those above. You can use configure
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options --spool-dir, --socket-file, --allow-file, --deny-file, --pid-file and
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--tmp-dir to make mcron behave similarly. Note that, with the exception of
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tmp-dir, none of these files or directories should be accessible by ordinary
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(non-root) users.
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If your old cron is Vixie, or very similar, mcron should fall right into place
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where your old cron was (the binaries cron and crontab will be replaced, but if
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your existing system has a binary called crond, you should make this a link
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to mcron), and you should be able to continue to use your existing crontabs
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without noticing any changes.
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If you don't want to clobber your existing cron executables, you can specify
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the --program-prefix option to configure with a prefix ending in a
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non-alphabetic character, for example "m.", and then run the programs as
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m.mcron, m.cron (or m.crond) and m.crontab.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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See the file INSTALL for generic building and installation instructions.
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After installation, read the info file for full instructions for use (typing
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`info mcron' at the command line should suffice). Notes for end users,
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sysadmins, and developers who wish to incorporate mcron into their own programs
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are included here.
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Known bugs are noted in the BUGS file, and features which might be implemented
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sometime sooner or later are noted in the TODO file.
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Please send all other bug reports to bug-mcron@gnu.org. Other mailing lists you
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could subscribe to are help-mcron@gnu.org (for help and advice from the
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community, including the author) and info-mcron@gnu.org (for news as it
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happens).
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Mcron is free software. See the file COPYING for copying conditions.
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The mcron development home page is at http://www.gnu.org/software/mcron, and it
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can be obtained from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/mcron.
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