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+.\"/* Copyright 1988,1990,1993,1994 by Paul Vixie
+.\" * All rights reserved
+.\" */
+.\"
+.\" Copyright (c) 2004 by Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. ("ISC")
+.\" Copyright (c) 1997,2000 by Internet Software Consortium, Inc.
+.\"
+.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
+.\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
+.\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
+.\"
+.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ISC DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
+.\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
+.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL ISC BE LIABLE FOR
+.\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
+.\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
+.\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT
+.\" OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
+.\"
+.\" $Id: crontab.5,v 1.6 2004/01/23 19:03:33 vixie Exp $
+.\"
+.TH CRONTAB 5 2012-11-22 "cronie" "File Formats"
+.SH NAME
+crontab \- files used to schedule the execution of programs
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+A
+.I crontab
+file contains instructions for the
+.BR cron (8)
+daemon in the following simplified manner: "run this command at this time
+on this date". Each user can define their own crontab. Commands defined
+in any given crontab are executed under the user who owns that particular
+crontab. Uucp and News usually have their own crontabs, eliminating the
+need for explicitly running
+.BR su (1)
+as part of a cron command.
+.PP
+Blank lines, leading spaces, and tabs are ignored. Lines whose first
+non-white space character is a pound-sign (#) are comments, and are not
+processed. Note that comments are not allowed on the same line as cron
+commands, since they are considered a part of the command. Similarly,
+comments are not allowed on the same line as environment variable
+settings.
+.PP
+An active line in a crontab is either an environment setting or a cron
+command. An environment setting is of the form:
+.PP
+ name = value
+.PP
+where the white spaces around the equal-sign (=) are optional, and any
+subsequent non-leading white spaces in
+.I value
+is a part of the value assigned to
+.IR name .
+The
+.I value
+string may be placed in quotes (single or double, but matching) to
+preserve leading or trailing white spaces.
+.PP
+Several environment variables are set up automatically by the
+.BR cron (8)
+daemon.
+.I SHELL
+is set to /bin/sh, and
+.I LOGNAME
+and
+.I HOME
+are set from the /etc/passwd line of the crontab\'s owner.
+.I HOME
+and
+.I SHELL
+can be overridden by settings in the crontab; LOGNAME can not.
+.PP
+(Note: the
+.I LOGNAME
+variable is sometimes called
+.I USER
+on BSD systems and is also automatically set).
+.PP
+In addition to
+.IR LOGNAME ,
+.IR HOME ,
+and
+.IR SHELL ,
+.BR cron (8)
+looks at the
+.I MAILTO
+variable if a mail needs to be send as a result of running any commands
+in that particular crontab. If
+.I MAILTO
+is defined (and non-empty), mail is sent to the specified address. If
+.I MAILTO
+is defined but empty
+.RI ( MAILTO="" ),
+no mail is sent. Otherwise, mail is sent to the owner of the crontab.
+This option is useful if you decide to use /bin/mail instead of
+/usr/lib/sendmail as your mailer. Note that /bin/mail does not provide
+aliasing and UUCP usually does not read its mail. If
+.I MAILFROM
+is defined (and non-empty), it is used as the envelope sender address,
+otherwise, ``root'' is used.
+.PP
+(Note: Both
+.I MAILFROM
+and
+.I MAILTO
+variables are expanded, so setting them as in the following example works as expected: MAILFROM=cron-$USER@cron.com ($USER is replaced by the system user) )
+.PP
+By default, cron sends a mail using the 'Content-Type:' header
+of 'text/plain' with the 'charset=' parameter set to the 'charmap/codeset'
+of the locale in which
+.BR crond (8)
+is started up, i.e., either the default system locale, if no LC_*
+environment variables are set, or the locale specified by the LC_*
+environment variables (see
+.BR locale (7)).
+Different character encodings can be used for mailing cron job outputs by
+setting the
+.I CONTENT_TYPE
+and
+.I CONTENT_TRANSFER_ENCODING
+variables in a crontab to the correct values of the mail headers of those
+names.
+.PP
+The
+.I CRON_TZ
+variable specifies the time zone specific for the cron table. The user
+should enter a time according to the specified time zone into the table.
+The time used for writing into a log file is taken from the local time
+zone, where the daemon is running.
+.PP
+The
+.I MLS_LEVEL
+environment variable provides support for multiple per-job SELinux
+security contexts in the same crontab. By default, cron jobs execute
+with the default SELinux security context of the user that created the
+crontab file. When using multiple security levels and roles, this may
+not be sufficient, because the same user may be running in different
+roles or in different security levels. For more information about roles
+and SELinux MLS/MCS, see
+.BR selinux (8)
+and the crontab example mentioned later on in this text. You can set the
+.I MLS_LEVEL
+variable to the SELinux security context string specifying the particular
+SELinux security context in which you want jobs to be run.
+.B crond
+will then set the execution context of those jobs that meet the
+specifications of the particular security context. For more information,
+see
+.BR crontab (1)\ -s\ option.
+.PP
+The
+.I RANDOM_DELAY
+variable allows delaying job startups by random amount of minutes with
+upper limit specified by the variable. The random scaling factor is
+determined during the cron daemon startup so it remains constant for
+the whole run time of the daemon.
+.PP
+The format of a cron command is similar to the V7 standard, with a number
+of upward-compatible extensions. Each line has five time-and-date fields
+followed by a
+.BR user name
+(if this is the
+.BR system
+crontab file), and followed by a command. Commands are executed by
+.BR cron (8)
+when the 'minute', 'hour', and 'month of the year' fields match the
+current time,
+.I and
+at least one of the two 'day' fields ('day of month', or 'day of week')
+match the current time (see "Note" below).
+.PP
+Note that this means that non-existent times, such as the "missing hours"
+during the daylight savings time conversion, will never match, causing
+jobs scheduled during the "missing times" not to be run. Similarly,
+times that occur more than once (again, during the daylight savings time
+conversion) will cause matching jobs to be run twice.
+.PP
+.BR cron (8)
+examines cron entries every minute.
+.PP
+The time and date fields are:
+.IP
+.ta 1.5i
+field allowed values
+.br
+----- --------------
+.br
+minute 0-59
+.br
+hour 0-23
+.br
+day of month 1-31
+.br
+month 1-12 (or names, see below)
+.br
+day of week 0-7 (0 or 7 is Sunday, or use names)
+.br
+.PP
+A field may contain an asterisk (*), which always stands for
+"first\-last".
+.PP
+Ranges of numbers are allowed. Ranges are two numbers separated with a
+hyphen. The specified range is inclusive. For example, 8-11 for
+an 'hours' entry specifies execution at hours 8, 9, 10, and 11. The first
+number must be less than or equal to the second one.
+.PP
+Randomization of the execution time within a range can be used.
+A random number within a range specified as two numbers separated with
+a tilde is picked. The specified range is inclusive.
+For example, 6~15 for a 'minutes' entry picks a random minute
+within 6 to 15 range. The random number is picked when crontab file is parsed.
+The first number must be less than or equal to the second one. You might omit
+one or both of the numbers specifying the range. For example, ~ for a 'minutes'
+entry picks a random minute within 0 to 59 range.
+.PP
+Lists are allowed. A list is a set of numbers (or ranges) separated by
+commas. Examples: "1,2,5,9", "0-4,8-12".
+.PP
+Step values can be used in conjunction with ranges. Following a range
+with "/<number>" specifies skips of the number's value through the range.
+For example, "0-23/2" can be used in the 'hours' field to specify command
+execution for every other hour (the alternative in the V7 standard is
+"0,\:2,\:4,\:6,\:8,\:10,\:12,\:14,\:16,\:18,\:20,\:22"). Step values are
+also permitted after an asterisk, so if specifying a job to be run every
+two hours, you can use "*/2".
+.PP
+Names can also be used for the 'month' and 'day of week' fields. Use the
+first three letters of the particular day or month (case does not
+matter). Ranges and lists of names are allowed. Examples: "mon,wed,fri",
+"jan-mar".
+.PP
+If the UID of the owner is 0 (root), the first character of a crontab
+entry can be "-" character. This will prevent cron from writing a syslog
+message about the command being executed.
+.PP
+The "sixth" field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run.
+The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or a "%"
+character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the
+SHELL variable of the cronfile. A "%" character in the command, unless
+escaped with a backslash (\\), will be changed into newline characters,
+and all data after the first % will be sent to the command as standard
+input.
+.PP
+Note: The day of a command's execution can be specified in the following
+two fields \(em 'day of month', and 'day of week'. If both fields are
+restricted (i.e., do not contain the "*" character), the command will be
+run when
+.I either
+field matches the current time. For example,
+.br
+"30 4 1,15 * 5" would cause a command to be run at 4:30 am on the 1st and
+15th of each month, plus every Friday.
+.PP
+A crontab file syntax can be tested before an install using the -T option. See
+.BR crontab (1)
+for details.
+.SH EXAMPLE CRON FILE
+.nf
+# use /bin/sh to run commands, no matter what /etc/passwd says
+SHELL=/bin/sh
+# mail any output to `paul', no matter whose crontab this is
+MAILTO=paul
+#
+CRON_TZ=Japan
+# run five minutes after midnight, every day
+5 0 * * * $HOME/bin/daily.job >> $HOME/tmp/out 2>&1
+# run at 2:15pm on the first of every month -- output mailed to paul
+15 14 1 * * $HOME/bin/monthly
+# run at 10 pm on weekdays, annoy Joe
+0 22 * * 1-5 mail -s "It's 10pm" joe%Joe,%%Where are your kids?%
+23 0-23/2 * * * echo "run 23 minutes after midn, 2am, 4am ..., everyday"
+5 4 * * sun echo "run at 5 after 4 every sunday"
+.fi
+.SH Jobs in /etc/cron.d/
+The jobs in
+.I cron.d
+and
+.I /etc/crontab
+are system jobs, which are used usually for more than one user, thus,
+additionally the username is needed. MAILTO on the first line is
+optional.
+.SH EXAMPLE OF A JOB IN /etc/cron.d/job
+.nf
+#login as root
+#create job with preferred editor (e.g. vim)
+MAILTO=root
+* * * * * root touch /tmp/file
+.fi
+.SH SELinux with multi level security (MLS)
+In a crontab, it is important to specify a security level by
+.I crontab \-s
+or specifying the required level on the first line of the crontab. Each
+level is specified in
+.IR /etc/selinux/targeted/seusers .
+When using crontab in the MLS mode, it is especially important to:
+.br
+- check/change the actual role,
+.br
+- set correct
+.I role for
+.IR directory ,
+which is used for input/output.
+.SH EXAMPLE FOR SELINUX MLS
+.nf
+# login as root
+newrole -r sysadm_r
+mkdir /tmp/SystemHigh
+chcon -l SystemHigh /tmp/SystemHigh
+crontab -e
+# write in crontab file
+MLS_LEVEL=SystemHigh
+0-59 * * * * id -Z > /tmp/SystemHigh/crontest
+.fi
+.SH FILES
+.I /etc/crontab
+main system crontab file.
+.I /var/spool/cron/
+a directory for storing crontabs defined by users.
+.I /etc/cron.d/
+a directory for storing system crontabs.
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.BR cron (8),
+.BR crontab (1)
+.SH EXTENSIONS
+These special time specification "nicknames" which replace the 5 initial
+time and date fields, and are prefixed with the '@' character, are
+supported:
+.PP
+.nf
+@reboot : Run once after reboot.
+@yearly : Run once a year, ie. "0 0 1 1 *".
+@annually : Run once a year, ie. "0 0 1 1 *".
+@monthly : Run once a month, ie. "0 0 1 * *".
+@weekly : Run once a week, ie. "0 0 * * 0".
+@daily : Run once a day, ie. "0 0 * * *".
+@hourly : Run once an hour, ie. "0 * * * *".
+.fi
+.SH CAVEATS
+.BR crontab
+files have to be regular files or symlinks to regular files, they must
+not be executable or writable for anyone else but the owner. This
+requirement can be overridden by using the
+.B \-p
+option on the crond command line. If inotify support is in use, changes
+in the symlinked crontabs are not automatically noticed by the cron
+daemon. The cron daemon must receive a SIGHUP signal to reload the
+crontabs. This is a limitation of the inotify API.
+.PP
+cron requires that each entry in a crontab end in a newline character. If the
+last entry in a crontab is missing a newline (i.e.\& terminated by EOF),
+cron will consider the crontab (at least partially) broken.
+A warning will be written to syslog.
+.SH AUTHOR
+.MT vixie@isc.org
+Paul Vixie
+.ME