About fcron

Copyright © 2000-2025 Thibault Godouet | Fcron 3.4.0 | Web page : http://fcron.free.fr

Fcron documentation
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# 1.1. About fcron

## 1.1.1. What is fcron?

Fcron is a scheduler. It aims at replacing Vixie Cron, so it implements most of its functionalities.

But contrary to Vixie Cron, fcron does not need your system to be up 7 days a week, 24 hours a day: it also works well with systems which are neither running all the time nor regularly (contrary to anacrontab).

In other words, fcron does both the job of Vixie Cron and anacron, but does even more and better :)) ...

To do so, fcron allows you to use the standard mode in which you tell it to execute one command at a given date and time. Alternatively you can instruct fcron to execute a command after a certain duration of fcron's runtime (which is normally the same as system up time because fcron is typically started on boot). For example:

> Run the task 'save /home/ directory' every 3h15 of system up time.

and, of course, in order to make it really useful, the time remaining until next execution is saved each time the system is stopped. You can also say:

> run that command once between 2am and 5am

which will be done if the system is running at any time in this interval.

Fcron also includes a useful system of options, which can be applied either to every lines following the declaration or to a single line. Some of the supported options permit to:

- run jobs one by one (fcrontab option `serial`),

- set the max system load average value under which the job should be run (fcrontab option `lavg`),

- set a nice value for a job (fcrontab option `nice`),

- run jobs at fcron's startup if they should have been run during system down time (fcrontab option `bootrun`),

- mail user to tell him a job has not run and why (fcrontab option `noticenotrun`),

- a better management of the mailing of outputs ...

## 1.1.2. License

Fcron is distributed under GPL license (please read the license in the gpl file).

## 1.1.3. Requirements

- a Linux/Unix system

  Fcron should work on every POSIX system, but it has been developed on Mandrake Linux (so it should work without any problems on Redhat).

  Fcron has been reported to work correctly on:

  - Linux Mandrake

  - Linux Debian 3.0

  - LFS

    (take a look at the Beyond LFS book to find the installation informations).

  - FreeBSD 4.2

  - OpenBSD 2.8

  - NetBSD 2.0

  - Darwin/MacOS-X

  - Solaris 8

  - AIX 4.3.3

  - HP-UX 11.11

  but fcron should work on other OS as well. Yet, if you have troubles making it work on a POSIX system, please contact me at `<fcron@free.fr>`.

- a running syslog (or you won't have any log)

- a running mail system ( sendmail or postfix for example) (or users will not able to read their jobs output)

- (optional) a PAM library.

- (optional) a system with a working SE Linux environment.

## 1.1.4. Compilation and installation

See the install file (either install.txt or install.html).

## 1.1.5. Configuration

See the fcron(8), fcrontab(5) and fcrontab(1) manpages.

## 1.1.6. Bug reports, corrections, propositions...

Please send me the description of any bug you happen to encounter (with, even better, the corresponding patch -:) and any propositions, congratulations or flames at `<fcron@free.fr>`

Please contact Russell Coker directly for problems about SE Linux support at `<russell@coker.com.au>`, since he maintains this part of the code.

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