[arch-general] Change Arch's default crond

[Thomas S Hatch]

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 3:43 PM, Sander Jansen <s.jansen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Thomas S Hatch <thatch45 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Heiko Baums <lists at baums-on-web.de>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Am Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:27:27 +0200
> >> schrieb Thomas Bächler <thomas at archlinux.org>:
> >>
> >> > That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most
> >> > important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like
> >> > fcron a lot.
> >>
> >> Are you sure about that? I mean, I didn't need /etc/cron.d, yet. So I
> >> don't know exactly, but somehow I think it has this functionality. But
> >> don't nail me down on it. I can be totally wrong regarding this. And I
> >> bet I am. ;-)
> >>
> >> Nevertheless is this feature really a knockout argument? Is this
> >> feature really necessary? Can't things in /etc/cron.d be transferred
> >> into /etc/cron.{hourly,...} or the usual fcrontab?
> >>
> >> Btw., people who really need /etc/cron.d for whatever reason can easily
> >> install a different cron daemon. The question is not to putting fcron
> >> into [core] and removing every other cron from the repos. The question
> >> is which cron shall be the default cron.
> >>
> >> > As for your conditions:
> >> > 1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of
> >> > features. It is by no means minimal though.
> >> > 2) I commented on that above.
> >> > 3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard
> >> > crontab entries and add &bootrun to the beginning of the line to
> >> > repeat "missed" cronjobs.
> >>
> >> And it runs those missed jobs reliably as soon as it's started at boot
> >> time.
> >>
> >> And I would say that this reliability is much more important
> >> than /etc/cron.d.
> >>
> >> > I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more.
> >>
> >> As far as I know cronie doesn't have anacron features (&bootrun) like
> >> fcron has.
> >>
> >> Heiko
> >>
> >
> > Well, seems I am invested... :)
> >
> > Ok, I think that cronie is worth advanced investigation...
> >
> > dcron and fcron are not under active development, cronie is
> > cronie is small - 0.20MB installed
> > cronie is developed by Red Hat - it is not going anywhere and we have
> > a guaranteed upgrade path
> > As far as I can tell cronie has no deps beyond glibc and pam
> > cronie has /etc/cron.d support
> > cronie has configurable anacron support via an anacrontab config file
> > cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core
> feature
> > set, etc are stable
> > cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate with
> > SELINUX (I am saving the "include SELINUX support in base for a latter
> > date")
> >
> > At the outset I think that cronie looks to be the most viable option, but
> > merits further investigation.
>
> This seems to be a monthly recurring discussion. How about not
> providing any default, just put all the different cron(s) in extra?
> I think eventually systemd will provide a cron-like service :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sander
>

Unfortunately this particular issue is not like the good ol' syslog-ng vs
rsyslog debate, this one is about the present default having bugs that
upstream is not fixing.
I have nothing against dcron as a cron daemon, but if upstream bugs are not
being fixed than a move needs to happen.

And yes, someday systemd will change my baby's diapers, but it doesn't today
:) (my understanding though is that the stated position of Arch was "no
systemd" btw)