anacrontab(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

ANACRONTAB(5)                 File Formats                 ANACRONTAB(5)

NAME         top

       /etc/anacrontab - configuration file for Anacron

DESCRIPTION         top

       The /etc/anacrontab configuration file describes the jobs
       controlled by anacron(8).  It can contain three types of lines:
       job-description lines, environment assignments, or empty lines.

       Job-description lines can have the following format:

          period in days   delay in minutes   job-identifier   command

       The period in days variable specifies the frequency of execution
       of a job in days.  This variable can be represented by an integer
       or a macro (@daily, @weekly, @monthly), where @daily denotes the
       same value as the integer 1, @weekly the same as 7, and @monthly
       specifies that the job is run once a month, independent on the
       length of the month.

       The delay in minutes variable specifies the number of minutes
       anacron waits, if necessary, before executing a job.  This
       variable is represented by an integer where 0 means no delay.

       The job-identifier variable specifies a unique name of a job
       which is used in the log files.

       The command variable specifies the command to execute.  The
       command can either be a command such as ls /proc >> /tmp/proc or
       a command to execute a custom script.

       Environment assignment lines can have the following format:

          VAR=VALUE

       Any spaces around VAR are removed.  No spaces around VALUE are
       allowed (unless you want them to be part of the value).  The
       specified assignment takes effect from the next line until the
       end of the file, or to the next assignment of the same variable.

       The START_HOURS_RANGE variable defines an interval (in hours)
       when scheduled jobs can be run.  In case this time interval is
       missed, for example, due to a power down, then scheduled jobs are
       not executed that day.

       The RANDOM_DELAY variable denotes the maximum number of minutes
       that will be added to the delay in minutes variable which is
       specified for each job.  A RANDOM_DELAY set to 12 would therefore
       add, randomly, between 0 and 12 minutes to the delay in minutes
       for each job in that particular anacrontab.  When set to 0, no
       random delay is added.

       If MAILTO is defined (and non-empty), mail is sent to the
       specified address, otherwise, system user is used.

       If MAILFROM is defined (and non-empty), it is used as the
       envelope sender address, otherwise, system user is used.

       (Note: Both MAILFROM and 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) )

       If NO_MAIL_OUTPUT is defined (and non-empty), the standard output
       and error descriptors of job processes are not redirected and e-
       mailed.

       Empty lines are either blank lines, line containing white spaces
       only, or lines with white spaces followed by a '#' followed by an
       arbitrary comment.

       You can continue a line onto the next line by adding a '\' at the
       end of it.

       In case you want to disable Anacron, add a line with 0anacron
       which is the name of the script running the Anacron into the
       /etc/cron.hourly/jobs.deny file.

EXAMPLE         top

       This example shows how to set up an Anacron job similar in
       functionality to /etc/crontab which starts all regular jobs
       between 6:00 and 8:00 only.  A RANDOM_DELAY which can be 30
       minutes at the most is specified.  Jobs will run serialized in a
       queue where each job is started only after the previous one is
       finished.

       # environment variables
       SHELL=/bin/sh
       PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
       MAILTO=root
       RANDOM_DELAY=30
       # Anacron jobs will start between 6am and 8am.
       START_HOURS_RANGE=6-8
       # delay will be 5 minutes + RANDOM_DELAY for cron.daily
       1         5    cron.daily          nice run-parts /etc/cron.daily
       7         0    cron.weekly         nice run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
       @monthly  0    cron.monthly        nice run-parts /etc/cron.monthly

SEE ALSO         top

       anacron(8), crontab(1)

       The Anacron README file.

AUTHOR         top

       Itai Tzur ⟨itzur@actcom.co.il⟩

       Currently maintained by Pascal Hakim ⟨pasc@(debian.org|
       redellipse.net)⟩.

       For Fedora, maintained by Marcela Mašláňová
       ⟨mmaslano@redhat.com⟩.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the cronie (crond daemon) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://github.com/cronie-crond/cronie⟩.  If you have a bug
       report for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://github.com/cronie-crond/cronie/issues⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/cronie-crond/cronie.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2024-05-31.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

cronie                         2012-11-22                  ANACRONTAB(5)

Pages that refer to this page: cronnext(1)anacron(8)cron(8)