From owner-freebsd-questions  Sun Jan  2 16: 5:48 2000
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from sasknow.com (h139-142-245-96.ss.fiberone.net [139.142.245.96])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 545B614C8C
	for <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>; Sun,  2 Jan 2000 16:05:39 -0800 (PST)
	(envelope-from freebsd@sasknow.com)
Received: from localhost (freebsd@localhost)
	by sasknow.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA35018;
	Sun, 2 Jan 2000 18:05:11 -0600 (CST)
	(envelope-from freebsd@sasknow.com)
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2000 18:05:10 -0600 (CST)
From: Ryan Thompson <freebsd@sasknow.com>
To: Ben Smithurst <ben@scientia.demon.co.uk>
Cc: Pekka Savola <Pekka.Savola@netcore.fi>,
	freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Huge crontab jobs are not run
In-Reply-To: <20000102212831.A4183@strontium.scientia.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10001021748190.34858-100000@sasknow.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG


On Sun, 2 Jan 2000, Ben Smithurst wrote:

> Ryan Thompson wrote:
> 
> > Did you kill -HUP cron?  If you didn't do this (or reboot the system),
> > your job won't run.  
> 
> According to the manpage, you don't need to:
> 
> | Additionally, cron checks each minute to see if its spool directory's
> | modtime (or the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed, and if it has, cron
> | will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload those which have
> | changed.  Thus cron need not be restarted whenever a crontab file is mod-
> | ified.  Note that the crontab(1) command updates the modtime of the spool
> | directory whenever it changes a crontab.

Hmm... I stand corrected :-)  I haven't looked at than man page for quite
some time.  Anyway, kill -HUP can't hurt, and might actually kick a few 
things into shape if modtimes get set incorrectly :-)

<ASIDE> 
 Isn't checking all crontabs every minute kind of a waste of good
 resources in many cases?  The only crontab I use on my system is
 /etc/crontab, and it changes infrequently.  For systems that allow users
 to set their own cron jobs, and/or implement frequent/automated changes,
 perhaps by the minute modtime checks is a reasonable solution.

 For (I'm reaching, here) MOST systems, though, /etc/crontab is it, and
 doesn't change much.  Should there be a way to disable the per-minute 
 checks and force updates to be done via kill -HUP?  There doesn't appear
 to be a way to do this without going to source.  Anybody aware of one?
</ASIDE>

> The manpage may be wrong, of course.
> 
> -- 
> Ben Smithurst            | PGP: 0x99392F7D
> ben@scientia.demon.co.uk |   key available from keyservers and
>                          |   ben+pgp@scientia.demon.co.uk
> 

--
  Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com>
  50% Owner, Technical and Accounts
  Phone: +1 (306) 664-1161

  SaskNow Technologies     http://www.sasknow.com
  #106-380 3120 8th St E   Saskatoon, SK  S7H 0W2





To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message