1 .\" Copyright (c) 1997 FreeBSD, Inc.
2 .\" All rights reserved.
4 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
7 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
13 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
14 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
15 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
16 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
17 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
18 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
19 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
20 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
21 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
22 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
25 .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.sbin/periodic/periodic.8,v 1.11.2.15 2003/03/12 22:08:15 trhodes Exp $
32 .Nd run periodic system functions
39 utility is intended to be called by
41 to execute shell scripts
42 located in the specified directory.
44 One or more of the following arguments must be specified:
45 .Bl -tag -width ".Pa monthly"
47 Perform the standard daily periodic executable run.
48 This usually occurs early in the morning (local time).
50 Perform the standard weekly periodic executable run.
51 This usually occurs on Saturday mornings.
53 Perform the standard monthly periodic executable run.
54 This usually occurs on the first day of the month.
56 Perform the standard daily security checks.
57 This is usually spawned by the
61 An arbitrary directory containing a set of executables to be run.
64 If an argument is an absolute directory name it is used as is, otherwise
65 it is searched for under
67 and any other directories specified by the
75 utility will run each executable file in the directory or directories
77 If a file does not have the executable bit set, it is silently ignored.
79 Each script is required to exit with one of the following values:
82 The script has produced nothing notable in its output.
84 .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_success
85 variable controls the masking of this output.
87 The script has produced some notable information in its output.
89 .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_info
90 variable controls the masking of this output.
92 The script has produced some warnings due to invalid configuration settings.
94 .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_badconfig
95 variable controls the masking of this output.
97 The script has produced output that must not be masked.
100 If the relevant variable (where
102 is the base directory in which the script resides) is set to
107 will mask the script output.
108 If the variable is not set to either
112 it will be given a default value as described in
113 .Xr periodic.conf 5 .
115 All remaining script output is delivered based on the value of the
116 .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _output
119 If this is set to a path name (beginning with a
121 character), output is simply logged to that file.
123 knows about the files
124 .Pa /var/log/daily.log , /var/log/weekly.log
126 .Pa /var/log/monthly.log ,
127 and if they exist, it will rotate them at the appropriate times.
128 These are therefore good values if you wish to log
133 .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _output
134 value does not begin with a
136 and is not empty, it is assumed to contain a list of email addresses, and
137 the output is mailed to them.
140 .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _output
141 is not set or is empty, output is sent to standard output.
147 environment to include all standard system directories, but no additional
150 If executables are added which depend upon other path components, each
151 executable must be responsible for configuring its own appropriate environment.
153 .Bl -tag -width ".Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf"
157 utility is typically called via entries in the system default
161 the top level directory containing
166 subdirectories which contain standard system periodic executables
167 .It Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
170 system registry contains variables that control the behaviour of
177 .It Pa /etc/periodic.conf
178 this file contains local overrides for the default
183 The system crontab should have entries for
185 similar to the following example:
186 .Bd -literal -offset indent
187 # do daily/weekly/monthly maintenance
188 0 2 * * * root periodic daily
189 0 3 * * 6 root periodic weekly
190 0 5 1 * * root periodic monthly
194 .Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
195 system registry will typically have a
199 .Dl local_periodic="/usr/local/etc/periodic /usr/pkg/xorg/etc/periodic"
203 output instead of receiving it as email, add the following lines to
204 .Pa /etc/periodic.conf :
205 .Bd -literal -offset indent
206 daily_output=/var/log/daily.log
207 weekly_output=/var/log/weekly.log
208 monthly_output=/var/log/monthly.log
211 To only see important information from daily periodic jobs, add the
213 .Pa /etc/periodic.conf :
214 .Bd -literal -offset indent
215 daily_show_success=NO
217 daily_show_badconfig=NO
220 Exit status is 0 on success and 1 if the command
221 fails for one of the following reasons:
223 .It usage: periodic <directory of files to execute>
224 No directory path argument was passed to
226 to specify where the script fragments reside.
227 .It <directory> not found
233 .Xr periodic.conf 5 ,
239 utility first appeared in
242 .An Paul Traina Aq pst@FreeBSD.org
243 .An Brian Somers Aq brian@Awfulhak.org
245 Since one specifies information about a directory using shell
246 variables containing the string,
249 must only contain characters that are valid within a
251 variable name, alphanumerics and underscores, and the first character