PERIODIC(8) BSD System Manager's Manual PERIODIC(8)

NAME
     ppeerriiooddiicc - run periodic system functions

SYNOPSIS
     ppeerriiooddiicc directory ...

DESCRIPTION
     The ppeerriiooddiicc program 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 usu-
              ally occurs on Sunday mornings.

     monthly  Perform the standard monthly periodic executable run.  This usu-
              ally occurs on the first day of the month.

     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, otherwise
     it is searched for under /etc/periodic and any other directories speci-
     fied by the localperiodic setting in periodic.conf(5) (see below).

     The ppeerriiooddiicc program 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
           showsuccess variable controls the masking of this out-
           put.

     1     The script has produced some notable information in its output.
           The showinfo variable controls the masking of this out-
           put.

     2     The script has produced some warnings due to invalid configuration
           settings.  The showbadconfig variable controls the mask-
           ing of this output.

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

     If the relevant variable (where  is the base directory in which
     the script resides) is set to ``NO'' in periodic.conf, ppeerriiooddiicc 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
     output setting.

     If this is set to a path name (beginning with a `/' character), output is
     simply logged to that file.

     If the output value does not begin with a `/' and is not empty,
     it is assumed to contain a list of email addresses, and the output is
     mailed to them.

     If output is not set or is empty, output is sent to standard
     output.

ENVIRONMENT     The ppeerriiooddiicc command 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 ppeerriiooddiicc program 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 executables.

     /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
                         The periodic.conf system registry contains variables
                         that control the behaviour of ppeerriiooddiicc and the stan-
                         dard daily, weekly, and monthly scripts.

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

EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS
     The system crontab should have entries for ppeerriiooddiicc 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
     localperiodic variable reading:

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

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

           dailyoutput=/var/log/daily.log
           weeklyoutput=/var/log/weekly.log
           monthlyoutput=/var/log/monthly.log

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

           dailyshowsuccess=NO
           dailyshowinfo=NO
           dailyshowbadconfig=NO

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

DIAGNOSTICS     Exit status is 0 on success and 1 if the command fails for one of the
     following reasons:

     uussaaggee:: ppeerriiooddiicc <>  No directory path argu-
     ment was passed to ppeerriiooddiicc to specify where the script fragments reside.

     <> nnoott ffoouunndd  Self explanatory.

BUGS
     Since one specifies information about a directory using shell variables
     containing the string, ,  must only contain characters
     that are valid within a sh(1) variable name, alphanumerics and under-
     scores, and the first character may not be numeric.

AUTHORS     Paul Traina 
     Brian Somers 

BSD                            November 28, 2001                           BSD