bcron-update(8)

📦 version 0.11, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 bcron-update(8) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the System Manager's Manual glow-up edition of bcron-update(8) — she's a section 8 girlie and she's about to make your crontabs ✨immaculate✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

bcron-update — Update system crontabs. that's it, that's the job, and she does it flawlessly 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

bcron-update path [ path ...  ]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so like, bcron-update polls the files or directories you named, on a lil periodic schedule, just vibing and checking: is there anything new, changed, or removed in here? 👀

the moment it clocks a change, it mirrors that change straight into the crontab spool directory. no cap, that's the whole personality.

and she runs as root, because bestie has to read system files that would otherwise be literally unreadable. main character privileges, but make it necessary. 👑

Debian girlies, listen up: on Debian, if path is a directory, bcron-update skips files in that directory whose names don't solely consist of: - lower- and uppercase letters (a-z, A-Z) - digits (0-9) - underscores (_) - hyphens (-) anything else? skipped. not invited to the function. 🙈

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

want that classic modern vixie-cron behaviour? the way to mirror it is literally:

bcron-update /etc/crontab /etc/cron.d

ate. 💖

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • BCRON_SPOOL — the spool directory for bcron. defaults to /var/spool/cron. that's her home base, her safe space 🫶
  • BCRON_USER — after writing files and before moving them into their final location, bcron-update changes the ownership of the file to this user, so that bcron-sched can read them. teamwork makes the dream work fr fr ✨

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

go say hi to her sister, iykyk 🧚

💀 DIAGNOSTICS 💀

bcron-update outputs three different kinds of messages about the actions she's taking. three. like a lil trio of status updates. iconic.

  • Rescanning /etc/cron.d — the named directory has been modified, and will be scanned to determine what files have been added or deleted. she's doing a full vibe check on the whole folder 🕵️
  • -/etc/cron.d/oldfile — the named file no longer exists and will be removed from the spool. rip boo, you had a good run 😭
  • +/etc/cron.d/newfile — the named file was either created or modified since the last scan, and will be copied into the spool. new arrival just dropped 🔥

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Bruce Guenter <bruce@untroubled.org> — the legend, the architect, the one who made this all possible 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie!! this was bcron-update(8) out of the System Manager's Manual, section 8, and she devoured every single time. go update those crontabs, you absolute icon 💅✨💖

📦 where this page comes from