[arch-general] About cron utility
Recently, I noticed that my laptop and server are using different cron utility.My laptop is using dcron while server using cronie. Then,I did some digging about the Arch default cron utility.I found a [discussion](http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2011-April/019282.html) happend on this list in April 2011. It said that dcron is dead, so cronie was choosen as default cron utility.Just before I am planning to use cronie replacing dcron on my laptop, I found that dcron has released a [update](https://github.com/dubiousjim/dcron/blob/master/CHANGELOG) on May 1st 2011 just after the discussion with some bugfixes and improvements like anacron support. What happend at that time? Is Jim Pryor responded the discussion in the maillist? Any link? Which cron utility should I use,cronie or dcron? Cronie in base group seems has a separate anacrontab in /etc which is not kiss I think? If anacron functionity has been included in dcron by default, May be dron is a good choice? It seems Jim Pryor is using Arch bug tracker as its official place of dcron development.Is this project dead or alive? So,what is the official recommendation on this point?
Am Sat, 7 Jan 2012 11:49:48 +0800 schrieb 郑文辉(Techlive Zheng) <techlivezheng@gmail.com>:
Which cron utility should I use,cronie or dcron?
I would still recommend fcron. Heiko
On Sat, 7 Jan 2012 05:50:06 +0100 Heiko Baums <lists@baums-on-web.de> wrote:
I would still recommend fcron.
+1 Sincerely, Gour -- As the ignorant perform their duties with attachment to results, the learned may similarly act, but without attachment, for the sake of leading people on the right path. http://atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810
On Sat, Jan 07, 2012 at 05:50:06AM +0100, Heiko Baums wrote:
Am Sat, 7 Jan 2012 11:49:48 +0800 schrieb 郑文辉(Techlive Zheng) <techlivezheng@gmail.com>:
Which cron utility should I use,cronie or dcron?
I would still recommend fcron.
I am using dcron, and am quite satisfied with it. Can you elaborate why you recommend fcron, i might switch. -- O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
Am Sat, 7 Jan 2012 13:29:12 +0530 schrieb gt <codered12@gmail.com>:
I am using dcron, and am quite satisfied with it. Can you elaborate why you recommend fcron, i might switch.
Usually I wouldn't say something like RTFM, but since I don't want to start such a long discussion about this topic again, I think you should read the thread the original poster has already linked to (the first 5 or 6 postings should be sufficient). Almost every argument for or against the various cron daemons have been given there. http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-general/2011-April/019282.html Here's another comparison between the cron daemons: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/cron-guide.xml And regarding fcron in particular I suggest reading this: http://fcron.free.fr/description.php Heiko
On Saturday 07 Jan 2012 11:49:48 éæè¾ wrote:
Which cron utility should I use,cronie or dcron? Cronie in base group seems has a separate anacrontab in /etc which is not kiss I think? If anacron functionity has been included in dcron by default, May be dron is a good choice?
I would recommend dcron. It did have some issues around that time with some long-standing bugs that Jim didn't have time to work on. Cron daemons aren't known for their fast-paced development; he was the only guy working on it and was busy with other stuff for a while. A couple of us eventually jumped into the code to help him, and all the known bugs were squashed. I've been using dcron on a production system at work, as well as my home server and laptop, and haven't had any problems since that time. I believe the Arch devs were too quick to switch to cronie, but that's done now. I understand the reasons, and with any other package it would have made sense, since upstream had been so quiet. Dcron is unusual, though, in that upstream is an Arch user, and the project has been kind of tied to Arch for a while. Paul
2012/1/7 Paul Gideon Dann <pdgiddie@gmail.com>:
On Saturday 07 Jan 2012 11:49:48 郑文辉 wrote:
Which cron utility should I use,cronie or dcron? Cronie in base group seems has a separate anacrontab in /etc which is not kiss I think? If anacron functionity has been included in dcron by default, May be dron is a good choice?
I would recommend dcron.
It did have some issues around that time with some long-standing bugs that Jim didn't have time to work on. Cron daemons aren't known for their fast-paced development; he was the only guy working on it and was busy with other stuff for a while.
A couple of us eventually jumped into the code to help him, and all the known bugs were squashed. I've been using dcron on a production system at work, as well as my home server and laptop, and haven't had any problems since that time.
I believe the Arch devs were too quick to switch to cronie, but that's done now. I understand the reasons, and with any other package it would have made sense, since upstream had been so quiet. Dcron is unusual, though, in that upstream is an Arch user, and the project has been kind of tied to Arch for a while.
Paul
Does someone know if cronie does support running missed jobs automatically (asynchronous job processing)? Wiki says dcron does it, but it does not mention cronie, but I think cronie can do that,too. Just wondering if it is better to use dcron or cronie...some of my machines still have dcron, others have cronie (arch switched from dcron to cronie in may 2011), but I want all my machines to use the same.. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cron#Asynchronous_job_processing Andreas
On Saturday 07 Jan 2012 16:07:44 Andreas wrote:
Does someone know if cronie does support running missed jobs automatically (asynchronous job processing)?
I think that's why Cronie ships with Anacron. The latter is supposed to deal with those cases, I think. It's largely the split implementation that puts me off Cronie. Paul
Am Sun, 08 Jan 2012 08:45:48 +0000 schrieb Paul Gideon Dann <pdgiddie@gmail.com>:
On Saturday 07 Jan 2012 16:07:44 Andreas wrote:
Does someone know if cronie does support running missed jobs automatically (asynchronous job processing)?
I think that's why Cronie ships with Anacron. The latter is supposed to deal with those cases, I think. It's largely the split implementation that puts me off Cronie.
fcron runs missed jobs if &bootrun is set at the beginning of the line in fcrontab. fcron has cron and anacron features all in one and works perfectly. Heiko
On Sunday 08 Jan 2012 10:29:01 Heiko Baums wrote:
fcron runs missed jobs if &bootrun is set at the beginning of the line in fcrontab. fcron has cron and anacron features all in one and works perfectly.
I've heard quite a few good things about fcron. Am I right in thinking it has some slightly different syntax? I think it was rejected as Arch default for that reason, but I may be misremembering. Paul
On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Paul Gideon Dann <pdgiddie@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday 08 Jan 2012 10:29:01 Heiko Baums wrote:
fcron runs missed jobs if &bootrun is set at the beginning of the line in fcrontab. fcron has cron and anacron features all in one and works perfectly.
I've heard quite a few good things about fcron. Am I right in thinking it has some slightly different syntax? I think it was rejected as Arch default for that reason, but I may be misremembering.
I'm also using fcron for years (even back when cron was still the default in arch), it is perfect, and first of all very stable. It fits desktop usage very well.
Am Sun, 8 Jan 2012 10:45:15 +0100 schrieb SanskritFritz <sanskritfritz@gmail.com>:
I'm also using fcron for years (even back when cron was still the default in arch), it is perfect, and first of all very stable. It fits desktop usage very well.
And it fits server usage just as well. Heiko
Am Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:31:55 +0000 schrieb Paul Gideon Dann <pdgiddie@gmail.com>:
On Sunday 08 Jan 2012 10:29:01 Heiko Baums wrote:
fcron runs missed jobs if &bootrun is set at the beginning of the line in fcrontab. fcron has cron and anacron features all in one and works perfectly.
I've heard quite a few good things about fcron. Am I right in thinking it has some slightly different syntax? I think it was rejected as Arch default for that reason, but I may be misremembering.
I don't know the reasons for choosing cronie as the default instead of fcron. But as far as I know the syntax is indeed slightly different, but this has to be changed only once, and I doubt that this is a big problem. Heiko
participants (7)
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Andreas
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Gour
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gt
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Heiko Baums
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Paul Gideon Dann
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SanskritFritz
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郑文辉(Techlive Zheng)