CROND(8)                       1988                      CROND(8)


NAME
       crond - daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron)

SYNOPSIS
       crond

DESCRIPTION
       Crond should be started from /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local.  It
       will return immediately, so you don't  need  to  start  it
       with '&'.

       Crond  searches /var/cron/tabs for crontab files which are
       named after accounts in /etc/passwd;  crontabs  found  are
       loaded  into  memory.   Crond  then wakes up every minute,
       examining all stored crontabs, checking  each  command  to
       see  if  it  should  be  run  in the current minute.  When
       executing commands, any output is mailed to the  owner  of
       the   crontab   (or  to  the  user  named  in  the  MAILTO
       environment variable in the crontab, if such exists).

       Additionally, crond checks each minute to see if its spool
       directory's modtime has changed, and if it has, crond will
       then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload  those
       which  have  changed.   Thus  crond  need not be restarted
       whenever a  crontab  file  is  modified.   Note  that  the
       Crontab(1)  command  updates  the  modtime  of  the  spool
       directory whenever it changes a crontab.

SEE ALSO
       crontab(1), crontab(5)

AUTHOR
       Paul Vixie, paul@vixie.sf.ca.us
























Nov                             15                              1