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Full Discussion: temporarily suspend crontab
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting temporarily suspend crontab Post 302344761 by Paul.S on Monday 17th of August 2009 01:19:43 PM
Old 08-17-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by avronius
One way is to use a control file for any "state" oriented scripts.

Create a directory in /var/tmp called "croncontrol"
Create a script called "disable" that accepts variables depending on the cronjob name (backup, reportmailer, etc).
This script will touch /var/tmp/croncontrol/backup or /var/tmp/reportmailer, etc.

Create a wrapper for your cron script (or add a line to the existing cron script) that checks for the file /var/tmp/croncontrol/backup (or mailer or whaterver). If the file exists, exit and do not run (although I'd recommend that it mail out that the script is not being run). If the file does not exist, proceed with the normal script function.

To enable the cron scripts to run again, write a simple script that accepts the same variables to rm the 'touched' file in /var/tmp/croncontrol.

Simple - but not terribly robust.
Thank you for suggestion. Will it be possible to guide sample scripts? Not much background on shell script writing. Regards

---------- Post updated at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:18 AM ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by peterro
You could...

Code:
0 3 * * * [ ! -f /some/lock_file ] && /path/to/backup/script

The operators would then have a script that would create/remove the lock file (where they have permissions to write). You could also implement that lock file logic into the backup script.

The danger in all of this is that if someone forgets to re-enable the backup script, backups won't be performed. I suppose you could also implement another job that would remove any lock file older than say 3 days.
Thank you Peterro, Can you suggest any sample script I can look into? Regards
 

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CRONTAB(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						CRONTAB(1)

NAME
crontab -- maintain crontab files for individual users (ISC Cron V4.1) SYNOPSIS
crontab [-u user] crontab [-elr] DESCRIPTION
crontab is the program used to install, deinstall, or list the tables used to drive the cron(8) daemon in ISC Cron. Each user can have their own crontab, and though these are files in /var/cron, they are not intended to be edited directly. If the /var/cron/allow file exists, then you must be listed therein in order to be allowed to use this command. If the /var/cron/allow file does not exist but the /var/cron/deny file does exist, then you must not be listed in the /var/cron/deny file in order to use this command. If neither of these files exists, depending on the compiled in settings, only the super user will be allowed to use this command, or everyone will be allowed to use this command. On NetBSD everyone is allowed to use this command. The default maximum size for a crontab is 256 kilobytes, but this may be changed for all users on the system by putting the desired maximum size (in bytes) in the /var/cron/maxtabsize file. If the -u option is given, it specifies the name of the user whose crontab is to be tweaked. If this option is not given, crontab examines ``your'' crontab, i.e., the crontab of the person executing the command. Note that su(1) can confuse crontab and that if you are running inside of su(1) you should always use the -u option for safety's sake. The first form of this command is used to install a new crontab from some named file or standard input if the pseudo-filename ``-'' is given. The -l option causes the current crontab to be displayed on standard output. The -r option causes the current crontab to be removed. The -e option is used to edit the current crontab using the editor specified by the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables. After you exit from the editor, the modified crontab will be installed automatically. FILES
/var/cron/allow Optional list of users that are allowed to use crontab. /var/cron/deny Optional list of users that are disallowed to use crontab. /var/cron/maxtabsize Maximum size of crontab files. Defaults to 256 kilobytes. /var/cron/tabs/ Directory containing the individual user crontab files, named after the user. DIAGNOSTICS
A fairly informative usage message appears if you run it with a bad command line. SEE ALSO
crontab(5), cron(8) STANDARDS
The crontab command conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2''). This new command syntax differs from previous versions of Vixie Cron, as well as from the classic Version 3 AT&T UNIX syntax. AUTHORS
Paul Vixie <vixie@isc.org> BSD
May 6, 2010 BSD
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