ANACRON(8)						       Anacron Users' Manual							ANACRON(8)

NAME

       anacron - runs commands periodically

SYNOPSIS

       anacron [-s] [-f] [-n] [-d] [-q] [-t anacrontab] [-S spooldir] [job] ...
       anacron [-S spooldir] -u [-t anacrontab] [job] ...
       anacron [-V|-h]
       anacron -T [-t anacrontab]

DESCRIPTION

       Anacron	can  be  used  to  execute commands periodically, with a frequency specified in days.  Unlike cron(8), it does not assume that the
       machine is running continuously.  Hence, it can be used on machines that aren't running 24 hours a  day,  to  control  daily,  weekly,  and
       monthly jobs that are usually controlled by cron.

       When  executed,	Anacron  reads a list of jobs from a configuration file, normally /etc/anacrontab (see anacrontab(5)).	This file contains
       the list of jobs that Anacron controls.	Each job entry specifies a period in days, a delay in minutes, a  unique  job  identifier,  and  a
       shell command.

       For  each job, Anacron checks whether this job has been executed in the last n days, where n is the period specified for that job.  If not,
       Anacron runs the job's shell command, after waiting for the number of minutes specified as the delay parameter.

       After the command exits, Anacron records the date in a special timestamp file for that job, so it can know when to execute it again.   Only
       the date is used for the time calculations.  The hour is not used.

       When there are no more jobs to be run, Anacron exits.

       Anacron	only considers jobs whose identifier, as specified in the anacrontab matches any of the job command-line arguments.  The job argu-
       ments can be shell wildcard patterns (be sure to protect them from your shell with adequate quoting).   Specifying  no  job  arguments,	is
       equivalent to specifying "*"  (That is, all jobs will be considered).

       Unless the -d option is given (see below), Anacron forks to the background when it starts, and the parent process exits immediately.

       Unless  the  -s or -n options are given, Anacron starts jobs immediately when their delay is over.  The execution of different jobs is com-
       pletely independent.

       If a job generates any output on its standard output or standard error, the output is mailed to the user running Anacron (usually root), or
       to  the address contained by the MAILTO environment variable in the crontab, if such exists. If the LOGNAME environment variable is set, it
       will be used as From: field.

       Informative messages about what Anacron is doing are sent to syslogd(8) under facility cron, priority notice.  Error messages are  sent	at
       priority error.

       "Active"  jobs  (i.e. jobs that Anacron already decided to run and now wait for their delay to pass, and jobs that are currently being exe-
       cuted by Anacron), are "locked", so that other copies of Anacron won't run them at the same time.

OPTIONS

       -f     Force execution of the jobs, ignoring the timestamps.

       -u     Only update the timestamps of the jobs, to the current date, but don't run anything.

       -s     Serialize execution of jobs.  Anacron will not start a new job before the previous one finished.

       -n     Run jobs now.  Ignore the delay specifications in the /etc/anacrontab file.  This options implies -s.

       -d     Don't fork to the background.  In this mode, Anacron will output informational messages to standard error, as  well  as  to  syslog.
	      The output of jobs is mailed as usual.

       -q     Suppress messages to standard error.  Only applicable with -d.

       -t anacrontab
	      Use specified anacrontab, rather than the default

       -T     Anacrontab testing. The configuration file will be tested for validity. If there is an error in the file, an error will be shown and
	      anacron will return 1. Valid anacrontabs will return 0.

       -S spooldir
	      Use the specified spooldir to store timestamps in. This option is required for users who wish to run anacron themselves.

       -V     Print version information, and exit.

       -h     Print short usage message, and exit.

SIGNALS

       After receiving a SIGUSR1 signal, Anacron waits for running jobs, if any, to finish and then exits.  This  can  be  used  to  stop  Anacron
       cleanly.

NOTES

       Make  sure  that the time-zone is set correctly before Anacron is started.  (The time-zone affects the date).  This is usually accomplished
       by setting the TZ environment variable, or by installing a /usr/lib/zoneinfo/localtime file.  See tzset(3) for more information.

       Timestamp files are created in the spool directory for each job in anacrontab. These are never removed automatically by anacron, and should
       be removed by hand if a job is no longer being scheduled.

FILES

       /etc/anacrontab
	      Contains specifications of jobs.	See anacrontab(5) for a complete description.

       /var/spool/anacron
	      This directory is used by Anacron for storing timestamp files.

SEE ALSO

       anacrontab(5), cron(8), tzset(3)

       The Anacron README file.

BUGS

       Anacron never removes timestamp files.  Remove unused files manually.

       Anacron	uses  up  to two file descriptors for each active job.	It may run out of descriptors if there are more than about 125 active jobs
       (on normal kernels).

       Mail comments, suggestions and bug reports to Sean 'Shaleh' Perry <shaleh@(debian.org|valinux.com)>.

AUTHOR

       Anacron was originally conceived and implemented by Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de>.

       The current implementation is a complete rewrite by Itai Tzur <itzur@actcom.co.il>.

       The code base was maintained by Sean 'Shaleh' Perry <shaleh@(debian.org|valinux.com)>.

       Since 2004, it is maintained by Pascal Hakim <pasc@(debian.org|redellipse.net)>.

Pascal Hakim							    2004-07-11								ANACRON(8)