CRON(8)

NAME
cron - daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron)

SYNOPSIS
cron [-s] [-o] [ -x debugflag[,...]]

DESCRIPTION
Cron should be started from /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local. It will return immediately, so you don't need to start it with '&'.

Cron searches /var/cron/tabs for crontab files which are named after accounts in /etc/passwd; crontabs found are loaded into memory. Cron also searches for /etc/crontab which is in a different format (see crontab(5)). Cron then wakes up every minute, examining all stored crontabs, checking each command to see if it should be run in the current minute. When executing commands, any output is mailed to the owner of the crontab (or to the user named in the MAILTO environment variable in the crontab, if such exists).

Additionally, cron checks each minute to see if its spool directory's modtime (or the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed, and if it has, cron will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload those which have changed. Thus cron need not be restarted whenever a crontab file is modified. Note that the crontab(1) command updates the modtime of the spool directory whenever it changes a crontab.

Available options:

-s  Enable special handling of situations when the GMT offset of the local timezone changes, such as the switches between the standard time and daylight saving time.

    The jobs run during the GMT offset changes time as intuitively expected. If a job falls into a time interval that disappears (for example, during the switch from standard time) to daylight saving time or is duplicated (for example, during the reverse switch), then it's handled in one of two ways:

    The first case is for the jobs that run every at hour of a time interval overlapping with the disappearing or duplicated interval. In other words, if the job had run within one hour before the GMT offset change (and cron was not restarted nor the crontab(5) changed after that) or would run after the change at the next hour. They work as always, skip the skipped time or run in the added time as usual.

    The second case is for the jobs that run less frequently. They are executed exactly once, they are not skipped nor executed twice (unless cron is restarted or the user's crontab(5) is changed during such a time interval). If an interval disappears due to the GMT offset change, such jobs are executed at the same absolute point of time as they would be in the old time zone. For example, if exactly one hour disappears, this point would be during the next hour at the first minute that is specified for them in crontab(5).

-o  Disable the special handling of situations when the GMT offset of the local timezone changes, to be compatible with the old (default) behavior. If both options -o and -s are specified, the option specified last wins.

SEE ALSO
crontab(1), crontab(5)

AUTHORS
Paul Vixie <paul@vix.com>