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UNTITLED()			     LOCAL			    UNTITLED()

NAME
       periodic	-- run periodic	system functions

SYNOPSIS
       periodic	directory ...

DESCRIPTION
       The  periodic  utility  is  intended to be called by cron(8) to execute
       shell scripts located in	the specified directory.

       One or more of the following arguments must be specified:

       daily	Perform	the standard daily periodic executable run.  This usu-
		ally occurs early in the morning (local	time).

       weekly	Perform	the standard weekly  periodic  executable  run.	  This
		usually	occurs on Sunday mornings.

       monthly	Perform	 the  standard	monthly	periodic executable run.  This
		usually	occurs on the first day	of the month.

       security
		Perform	the standard daily security checks.  This  is  usually
		spawned	by the daily run.

       path	An  arbitrary  directory containing a set of executables to be
		run.

       If an argument is an absolute directory name it is used as  is,	other-
       wise  it	 is searched for under /etc/periodic and any other directories
       specified by the	local_periodic setting in  periodic.conf(5)  (see  be-
       low).

       The  periodic utility will run each executable file in the directory or
       directories specified.  If a file does not have the executable bit set,
       it is silently ignored.

       Each script is required to exit with one	of the following values:

       0     The script	has produced  nothing  notable	in  its	 output.   The
	     <basedir>_show_success variable controls the masking of this out-
	     put.

       1     The  script  has produced some notable information	in its output.
	     The <basedir>_show_info variable controls	the  masking  of  this
	     output.

       2     The  script  has produced some warnings due to invalid configura-
	     tion settings.  The  <basedir>_show_badconfig  variable  controls
	     the masking of this output.

       >2    The script	has produced output that must not be masked.

       If  the	relevant  variable  (where  <basedir> is the base directory in
       which the script	resides) is set	to  "NO"  in  periodic.conf,  periodic
       will  mask  the	script	output.	  If the variable is not set to	either
       "YES" or	"NO", it will  be  given  a  default  value  as	 described  in
       periodic.conf(5).

       All  remaining  script  output  is  delivered based on the value	of the
       <basedir>_output	setting.

       If this is set to a path	name (beginning	with a `/' character),	output
       is  simply  logged  to  that  file.  newsyslog(8) knows about the files
       /var/log/daily.log, /var/log/weekly.log and  /var/log/monthly.log,  and
       if they exist, it will rotate them at the appropriate times.  These are
       therefore good values if	you wish to log	periodic output.

       If  the	<basedir>_output  value	 does  not begin with a	`/' and	is not
       empty, it is assumed to contain a list of email addresses, and the out-
       put is mailed to	them.

       If <basedir>_output is not set or is empty, output is sent to  standard
       output.

ENVIRONMENT
       The  periodic utility sets the PATH environment to include all standard
       system  directories,   but   no	 additional   directories,   such   as
       /usr/local/bin.	 If executables	are added which	depend upon other path
       components, each	executable must	be responsible for configuring its own
       appropriate environment.

FILES
       /etc/crontab		    the	periodic utility is  typically	called
				    via	 entries in the	system default cron(8)
				    table

       /etc/periodic		    the	top level directory containing	daily,
				    weekly,  and  monthly subdirectories which
				    contain standard system periodic  executa-
				    bles

       /etc/defaults/periodic.conf  the	periodic.conf system registry contains
				    variables  that  control  the behaviour of
				    periodic and the standard  daily,  weekly,
				    and	monthly	scripts

       /etc/periodic.conf	    this file contains local overrides for the
				    default periodic configuration

EXIT STATUS
       Exit status is 0	on success and 1 if the	command	fails.

EXAMPLES
       The system crontab should have entries for periodic similar to the fol-
       lowing example:

	     # do daily/weekly/monthly maintenance
	     0	    2	    *	    *	    *	    root    periodic daily
	     0	    3	    *	    *	    6	    root    periodic weekly
	     0	    5	    1	    *	    *	    root    periodic monthly

       The  /etc/defaults/periodic.conf	 system	registry will typically	have a
       local_periodic variable reading:

	     local_periodic="/usr/local/etc/periodic /usr/X11R6/etc/periodic"

       To log periodic output instead of receiving it as email,	add  the  fol-
       lowing lines to /etc/periodic.conf:

	     daily_output=/var/log/daily.log
	     weekly_output=/var/log/weekly.log
	     monthly_output=/var/log/monthly.log

       To  only	 see  important	 information from daily	periodic jobs, add the
       following lines to /etc/periodic.conf:

	     daily_show_success=NO
	     daily_show_info=NO
	     daily_show_badconfig=NO

DIAGNOSTICS
       The command may fail for	one of the following reasons:

       usage: periodic <directory of files to execute>	No directory path  ar-
       gument was passed to periodic to	specify	where the script fragments re-
       side.

       <directory> not found  Self explanatory.

SEE ALSO
       sh(1), crontab(5), periodic.conf(5), cron(8), newsyslog(8)

HISTORY
       The periodic utility first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.

AUTHORS
       Paul Traina <pst@FreeBSD.org>
       Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>

BUGS
       Since one specifies information about a directory using shell variables
       containing  the	string,	<basedir>, <basedir> must only contain charac-
       ters that are valid within a sh(1) variable name, alphanumerics and un-
       derscores, and the first	character may not be numeric.

GNU			       November	28, 2001		   PERIODIC(8)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | DIAGNOSTICS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | BUGS

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