Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 13:37:21 -0500 From: Nikolai Lifanov <lifanov@mail.lifanov.com> To: Allan Jude <freebsd@allanjude.com>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cron(8) improvement Message-ID: <52793AE1.6080003@mail.lifanov.com> In-Reply-To: <527938C3.3000104@allanjude.com> References: <52792B60.1030309@allanjude.com> <52792CF3.9050104@mail.lifanov.com> <1383675687.8053.43379365.3F5A71FC@webmail.messagingengine.com> <527938C3.3000104@allanjude.com>
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On 11/05/13 13:28, Allan Jude wrote: > On 2013-11-05 13:21, Mark Felder wrote: >> >> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013, at 11:37, Nikolai Lifanov wrote: >>> On 11/05/13 12:31, Allan Jude wrote: >>>> This came up in discussion on IRC and I thought I should throw it at the >>>> list so I don't forget. >>>> >>>> A user was asking how to do what linux cron does, where there is a >>>> directory /etc/cron.d/ that packages and add files to to create crontabs. >>>> >>>> Making FreeBSD's cron (Vixie Cron) include /etc/cron.d/ and >>>> /usr/local/etc/cron.d/ in the /etc/crontab format seems like a very >>>> useful feature, especially for pkg(8) as it makes it easy and safe to >>>> programatically add and remove crontabs as part of a package. >>>> >>>> >>> Shouldn't we encourage packages to use periodic(8) when possible? >>> >> Yes but our default periodic configuration in /etc/crontab is only >> configured to be as granular as daily. If this is something that should >> run hourly or at very strange intervals then cron is a better choice. >> >> If the application is installing its own user they could install their >> own crontab file in /var/cron/tabs. I'm certain I've seen a couple ports >> do this. >> _______________________________________________ >> freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current >> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > I don't have a specific example off the top of my head, but I am sure > there are some daemons that needs to do something at some interval as > root. Personally I am not so sure about having a package create a > crontab automatically. It seems like a POLA violation, but it is also > something that seems to be expected by some modern applications. I > assume it is mostly handled by pkg-message currently, and maybe it is > best to continue that way, but having the additional flexibility may be > very useful. > > If for nothing else, it would be a lot prettier than the way I currently > manage crontabs using puppet. > I would be frustrated if a port installed a root cron job without my intervention. How about an RC extension that dynamically adds these? Think 'drupal_cron_enable="YES"'. I just think that there should be something an operator does, either explicitly or through configuration management, to add a cron job for root. We don't auto-enable daemons, so we should not auto-add these either. - Nikolai Lifanov
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