Cron Job

Unix has two built-in schedulers. These schedulers allow you to setup
programs to run at any date, or time in the future unattended. The two
schedulers are Cron, and At.

The Cron scheduler is the most widely used.

The cron daemon, is a program that schedules jobs to run automatically
at a specific time and date. The /etc/inittab file contains all the AIX
startup programs, including the cron daemon. The init process in AIX
starts the cron daemon, or cron, from the inittab file during the
initialization process of the operating system.
By default, cron can concurrently run 100 events of equal importance.
The /usr/adm/cron/queuedefs file allows you to change this schedule.
Every user who is authorized to use the cron scheduler, will have their
own cron table file.
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Cron Job
Users crontabs are kept in the file /var/spool/cron/crontabs/
The root user has a crontab setup by default. You can see
whats scheduled to run via the cron scheduler, by using
the command crontab l, while logged
# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(system) groups=2(bin),3(sys),7(security),8(cron),10(audit),11(lp)
#
# crontab l
.
#0 3 * * * /usr/sbin/skulker
#45 2 * * 0 /usr/lib/spell/compress
#45 23 * * * ulimit 5000; /usr/lib/smdemon.cleanu > /dev/null
0 11 * * * /usr/bin/errclear -d S,O 30
0 12 * * * /usr/bin/errclear -d H 90
0 15 * * * /usr/lib/ras/dumpcheck >/dev/null 2>&1
# SSA warning : Deleting the next two lines may cause errors in redundant
#SSA warning : hardware to go undetected.
01 5 * * * /usr/lpp/diagnostics/bin/run_ssa_ela 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null
0 * * * * /usr/lpp/diagnostics/bin/run_ssa_healthcheck 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null
# SSA warning : Deleting the next line may allow enclosure hardware errors to go undetected

Cron Job

The following is an example of a crontab entry

0 2 3 2 0 /home/bob/program1
There are six fields in a crontab configuration. They are as follows, from left to right.
1 The minute of the hour the job will run (0-59)
2 The hour of the day the job will run (0-23)
3 The day of the month the job will run (1-31)
4 The month of the year the job will run (1-12)
5 The day of the week the job will run (0-6) 0 = Sunday.
6 Command/program to run.
In our example at the top of the page a program called program1 which resides in the directory
/home/bob, will run at 2am, on February 3rd, on Sunday.
You can also use an asterick, *, in a specific field to denote, run every whatever.
The pound sign, #, will disable that job/program from running via cron.
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Cron Job
Setting the EDITOR system variable to a specific editor
will tell the crontab editor which editor to use to edit the
crontab.
# ls -l /usr/bin/vi
-r-xr-xr-x 5 bin bin

302706 Sep 7 22:41 /usr/bin/vi

# export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi
# echo $EDITOR
/usr/bin/vi
# date
Fri Sep 11 10:40:18 EDT 2009
#
# crontab e

45 10 * * * /usr/bin/sleep 60 &
# ps -ef | grep -i sleep
root 372746 340172 0 10:41:23 pts/0 0:00 grep -i sleep
#

Cron
You can view the status of a past cron job by viewing
the /var/adm/cron/log file.
# ps -ef | grep -i sleep
root 372754 1 0 10:45:00

- 0:00 /usr/bin/sleep 60

# cd /var/adm/cron
# pwd
/var/adm/cron
# ls -l log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bin

bin

32059 Sep 11 11:00 log

# tail log
root : CMD ( /usr/lpp/diagnostics/bin/run_ssa_healthcheck 1>/dev/null 2>/de
v/null ) : PID ( 372876 ) : Fri Sep 11 10:00:00 2009
Cron Job with pid: 372876 Successful
root : CMD ( /usr/lpp/diagnostics/bin/run_ssa_encl_healthcheck 1>/dev/null
2>/dev/null ) : PID ( 372940 ) : Fri Sep 11 10:30:00 2009
Cron Job with pid: 372940 Successful
root : CMD ( /usr/bin/sleep 1000 & ) : PID ( 393470 ) : Fri Sep 11 10:45:00 2009
Cron Job with pid: 393470 Successful

Cron Job

You can also use the at scheduler to run programs

unattended in Unix/AIX. The advantage of using the at
scheduler over cron, especially for on-time jobs, is that
you do not have to clean up the job from any tab file,
when its completed.
# date
Fri Sep 11 11:09:59 EDT 2009

# at 11:11 today
sleep 60
job root.1252681860.a at Fri Sep 11 11:11:00 2009
# at -l
root.1252681860.a
#

Fri Sep 11 11:11:00 2009

# ps -ef | grep -i sleep

root 393284 372838 0 11:11:00
# at -l
#

- 0:00 sleep 60

Cron Job
At jobs status are also logged to the
/var/adm/cron/log file.
# tail /var/adm/cron/log
root : CMD ( /usr/lpp/diagnostics/bin/run_ssa_encl_healthcheck 1>/dev/null
2>/dev/null ) : PID ( 372940 ) : Fri Sep 11 10:30:00 2009
Cron Job with pid: 372940 Successful
root : CMD ( /usr/bin/sleep 1000 & ) : PID ( 393470 ) : Fri Sep 11 10:45:00
2009
Cron Job with pid: 393470 Successful
root : CMD ( /usr/bin/errclear -d S,O 30 ) : PID ( 393258 ) : Fri Sep 11 11
:00:00 2009
root : CMD ( /usr/lpp/diagnostics/bin/run_ssa_healthcheck 1>/dev/null 2>/de
v/null ) : PID ( 405614 ) : Fri Sep 11 11:00:00 2009
Cron Job with pid: 405614 Successful
Cron Job with pid: 393258 Successful
root : CMD ( root.1252681860.a ) : PID ( 372838 ) : Fri Sep 11 11:11:00 2009
Cron Job with pid: 372838 Successful
#

Cron Job

The cron, and at schedulers also have a basic security mechanism.

- The file /var/adm/cron/cron.deny is used to list users who are not authorized
to use cron.
- The file /var/adm/cron/cron.allow is used to list users who are authorized to
use cron.
- The file /var/adm/cron/at.deny is used to list users who are not authorized to
use at.
- The file /var/adm/cron/at.allow is used to list users who are authorized to use
at.
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