CRON and ANACRON


If you run Mandrake ( RedHat has anacron installed as default ) and your computer is not ON 24 hrs a day, there are several “cron-jobs” ( maintenance ) that might be forgotten because they are planned for 3 – 4 o'clock at night.
Installing “anacron” will set this straight, anacron picks up forgotten cron-jobs and executes them 5 minutes after you boot your computer. ( You will notice extra activity of your CPU and harddisk for about 5 to 7 minutes ! )

Typical cron-jobs are “updatedb” updating the 'locate' database and various other databases. “Logrotate” that zips up old logfiles, /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages might grow so big that in extreme cases you could run out of diskspace : resulting in having to reinstall the OS !

Installing anacron is simple and needs no configuring.
Mandrake Control Center --> Software Management --> Installing Software --> search for anacron.


Bruno


-- Apr 22 2003 ( Revised Dec 12 2005 ) --