From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 5 18:37:23 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 70B32D2F for ; Tue, 5 Nov 2013 18:37:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lifanov@mail.lifanov.com) Received: from mail.lifanov.com (mail.lifanov.com [206.125.175.12]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 59E8F2D50 for ; Tue, 5 Nov 2013 18:37:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [10.1.3.5] (cnet520-windstream.mcclatchyinteractive.com [166.108.16.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.lifanov.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C9CAE1A65A6; Tue, 5 Nov 2013 13:37:22 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <52793AE1.6080003@mail.lifanov.com> Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 13:37:21 -0500 From: Nikolai Lifanov User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Allan Jude , freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cron(8) improvement References: <52792B60.1030309@allanjude.com> <52792CF3.9050104@mail.lifanov.com> <1383675687.8053.43379365.3F5A71FC@webmail.messagingengine.com> <527938C3.3000104@allanjude.com> In-Reply-To: <527938C3.3000104@allanjude.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 18:37:23 -0000 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