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CRON(8)                     System Manager's Manual                    CRON(8)

NAME
       cron - clock daemon

SYNOPSIS
       cron [-d[level]]

DESCRIPTION
       The cron daemon executes tasks that must be repeated every now and then
       (cron jobs), and tasks that must be run just once  (at  jobs).   It  is
       normally  used to run daily or weekly system maintenance scripts.  What
       it needs to run and when is specified in a number of "cron tables",  or
       crontab files for short.  These tables are:

              /usr/lib/crontab
              /usr/local/lib/crontab
              /var/lib/crontab
              /var/opt/name/lib/crontab  (Minix-vmd only)
              /usr/spool/crontabs/user

       These files follow the usual pattern:  One for the standard things, one
       for local tasks per organization, one for tasks  per  system,  and  one
       crontab  per  installed package.  (Cron reads /usr/lib/packages to find
       names of  installed  packages,  it  doesn't  just  grab  everything  in
       /var/opt.)  The last set of files fall outside the normal pattern, they
       are per user crontabs that one can create with the crontab(1)  command.
       The  file  names  in  /usr/spool/crontabs/  are login names of the file
       owners.

       The format of a crontab file is described in crontab(5).

   AT jobs
       Cron also takes care of the execution of jobs issued by at(1) that  are
       found  in /usr/spool/at/.  Cron simply runs the AT job as if there were
       an "sh at-job" as a cron job at the appropriate time under the  user-id
       of  the  owner  of the script.  The script takes care of the rest.  See
       at(1) for the details.

   Job I/O
       Standard input, output and error are the same as cron's if the  job  is
       started  by  the  system crontabs or from package crontabs.  This means
       that output from system jobs usually ends up on the console and in  the
       log  file.  Output from personal cron jobs or at jobs are mailed to the
       owner of the job.  No mail is sent if the job is silent.

OPTIONS
       [-d[level]]
            Set the debug level, by default 1.  Makes cron print info on  what
            it  happens to be doing.  Level 1 just tells about sleep times and
            what job is executed, level 2 also shows the internal crontab data
            on  a  table load.  (With time fields translated to match those of
            struct tm, see ctime(3).)

   SIGNALS
       Cron takes the  following  actions  when  sent  one  of  the  following
       signals:

       SIGHUP      Reload  the  crontab  tables if they changed since the last
                   time they were loaded, and  reexamine  the  AT  job  spool.
                   Used by at(1) and crontab(1).

       SIGUSR1     Increase the debug level by 1.

       SIGUSR2     Turn debugging off.

ENVIRONMENT
       Cron  sets  the environment variables USER, LOGNAME, HOME, and SHELL to
       the user's login name (2x), home directory,  and  shell  if  a  job  is
       executed  for a given user.  The working directory is set to the user's
       home directory.  Everything else is inherited  from  cron,  exactly  as
       cron  got  it when it started.  Note that commands are always passed to
       /bin/sh, not to the user's shell.

       System cron jobs are in principle executed with cron's environment, use
       -u  root  or  the  crontab file /usr/spool/crontabs/root if you want to
       give root the same treatment as ordinary users.

FILES
       /usr/lib/crontab         Main MINIX 3 crontab file.

       /usr/local/lib/crontab   Local jobs for all systems in an organization.

       /var/lib/crontab         System specific jobs.

       /var/opt/name/lib/crontab
                                Per package jobs for Minix-vmd.

       /usr/lib/packages        List of installed packages.

       /usr/spool/crontabs/user Per user jobs.

       /usr/spool/at/*          Jobs issued by at(1).

       /usr/run/cron.pid        Process id of cron when cron is running.  Used
                                by  at(1) and crontab(1) to send cron a hangup
                                signal.

SEE ALSO
       at(1), crontab(1).

NOTES
       A job is not reissued until a previous instance of it has exited.   The
       next time to execute is computed from the previous time it ran.  If job
       issuing lags behind on the system time then the next time to run it  is
       computed from the current system time.

BUGS
       Cron  doesn't  like  it  if the system time is changed.  If set forward
       then cron will react when it next wakes up by running all  jobs  within
       the skipped time once or twice before it catches up.  Setting the clock
       backwards makes cron play dead until the system  time  passes  the  old
       time.   (Changing  the  system  time  is  bad idea anyway, and not just
       because of cron.)

       Jobs that fall in the missing hour in a change to Daylight Saving  Time
       are  skipped.   Nothing  is done in the extra hour on the change out of
       DST.

AUTHOR
       Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)

                                                                       CRON(8)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | SEE ALSO | NOTES | BUGS | AUTHOR