 |
Index for Section 8 |
|
 |
Alphabetical listing for C |
|
 |
Bottom of page |
|
cron(8)
NAME
cron - The system clock daemon
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/cron
DESCRIPTION
The cron daemon runs shell commands at specified dates and times. Commands
that are to run according to a regular or periodic schedule are found
within the crontab files. Commands that are to run once only are found
within the at files. You submit crontab and at file entries by using the
crontab and at commands. Because the cron process exits only when killed
or when the system stops, only one cron daemon should exist on the system
at any given time. Normally, you start the cron daemon from within a run
command file.
Note
Other that logging a startup entry in the /var/adm/cron/log file, the
cron daemon does not log its activities. You can use the Event
Manager (EVM) to create custom events for tasks that are scheduled by
the cron daemon. See EVM(5) for more information.
During process initialization and when cron detects a change, it examines
the crontab and at files. This strategy reduces the overhead of checking
for new or changed files at regularly scheduled intervals. The cron daemon
must be started from the system startup scripts because it must begin
execution without a login user ID set. It maintains the /usr/spool
cron/atjobs and the /usr spool cron/crontabs spool direcitories as
multilevel directories; jobs and crontabs submitted reside in the directory
associated with the sensitivity level of the process that invoked at or
crontab. It uses the level of the subdirectory as the one at which to start
the job. The cron communication FIFO is graded at the System High
sensitivity level. The cron daemon starts each job with the following
process attributes stored with the job by the invoking process:
· Login user ID
· Effective and real user IDs
· Effective and real group IDs
· Supplementary groups
· Sensitivity level
· Information label
It also establishes the following attributes from the authentication
profile of the account associated with the login user ID of the invoking
process:
· Audit control and disposition masks
· Clearance
· Kernel authorizations
· Base privilege set
DIAGNOSTICS
The at and batch programs will refuse to accept jobs submitted from
processes whose login user ID is different from the real user ID.
FILES
/usr/sbin/cron
Specifies the command path.
/var/adm/cron
Main cron directory
/var/spool/cron/crontabs
Directory containing the crontab files.
/var/adm/cron/cron.allow
List of allowed users.
/var/adm/cron/cron.deny
List of denied users
/var/adm/cron/log
This file contains startup information. (It is not a log of cron
activities).
/var/adm/cron/queuedefs
Queue description file for at, batch, and cron
SEE ALSO
Commands: at(1), crontab(1), rc0(8), rc2(8), rc3(8)
Files: queuedefs(4)
Misc: EVM(5)
 |
Index for Section 8 |
|
 |
Alphabetical listing for C |
|
 |
Top of page |
|