Cron is a clock daemon which allows you to start a job at specified date (and/or time) or every specified time period.
Firstly you need to install a package, do it as root:
root@dilos:~# apt-get update && apt-get install cron |
After it the package should be installed in your system, let check it:
root@dilos:~# dpkg -l cron Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-=============================-===================-===================-=============================================================== ii cron 3.0pl1-128-5 solaris-i386 process scheduling daemon |
The output means that the package has been installed.
To know what our daemon does (run the jobs) we need to add one line into the syslog configuration.
Open /etc/syslog.conf in your favorite text editor and add the line (as root):
cron.info /var/adm/messages |
You can write it into a separated file, for example, cron.log.
After you changed syslog.conf you need to reconfigure syslog daemon (as root):
root@dilos:~# svcadm refresh system-log |
Refresh method sends a HUP signal to the syslogd and the daemon will reread its configuration file.
Now we need to enable the service (as root):
root@dilos:~# svcadm enable cron |
Let check the status of the service:
root@dilos:~# svcs cron STATE STIME FMRI online 10:09:20 svc:/system/cron:default |
The state must be online, this means that the service works now.
From time to time you need to debug some jobs that cron runs, to increase a log level of the cron daemon you need to change service info (by default log level is 1).
To change this value run (as root):
root@dilos:~# svccfg -s cron setprop application/log_level = astring: 15 |
To be sure the value changed you can test it:
root@dilos:~# svcprop -p application/log_level cron 15 |
Don't forget to refresh the service after changes (as root):
root@dilos:~# svccfg -s svc:/system/cron:default refresh root@dilos:~# svcadm refresh cron |
And now you can restart the daemon (as root):
root@dilos:~# svcadm disable cron root@dilos:~# svcadm enable cron |
Always check the result of this operation, otherwise your service may be unavailable. |
root@dilos:~# svcs -xv root@dilos:~# ps -ef|grep cron root 4574 1 0 19:37:39 ? 0:00 /usr/sbin/cron -L 15 root 4577 4556 0 19:37:47 pts/1 0:00 grep cron |
Well, done...
You can combine this codes by OR (or +), in our example we set all of them (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15) |