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israeli donations to COLA




Itai Tzur sets an example (are you on this list, dude?), how come we don't
see more Israeli names on COLA?

from: 
Linux-Announce Digest #926, Volume #2            Sat, 21 Feb 98 19:13:19 EST


------------------------------

From: Itai Tzur <itzur@actcom.co.il>
Subject: Anacron 2.0 - Runs commands periodically
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 09:17:38 GMT

=====BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE=====


I have uploaded Anacron 2.0 to the incoming directories of
sunsite.unc.edu and tsx.mit.edu.

Anacron 2.0 is a complete rewrite of Christian Schwarz's innovative
program, well known to Debian users as the Debian package of the same
name.

The NEWS file and part of the README is appended below.

I would like to thank Christian Schwarz for his help with this
release, and also for inventing Anacron in the first place :-).

  -Itai



     What is Anacron ?
     -----------------

   Anacron is a periodic command scheduler.  It executes commands at
intervals specified in days.  Unlike cron, it does not assume that the
system is running continuously.  It can therefore be used to control
the execution of daily, weekly and monthly jobs (or anything with a
period of n days), on systems that don't run 24 hours a day.  When
installed and configured properly, Anacron will make sure that the
commands are run at the specified intervals as closely as
machine-uptime permits.

   Every time Anacron is run, it reads a configuration file that
specifies the jobs Anacron controls, and their periods in days.  If a
job wasn't executed in the last n days, where n is the period of that
job, Anacron executes it.  Anacron then records the date in a special
timestamp file that it keeps for each job, so it can know when to run
it again.  When all the executed commands terminate, Anacron exits.

   It is recommended to run Anacron from the system boot-scripts.
This way the jobs "whose time has come" will be run shortly after the
machine boots.  A delay can be specified for each job so that the
machine isn't overloaded at boot time.

   In addition to running Anacron from the boot-scripts, it is also
recommended to schedule it as a daily cron-job (usually at an early
morning hour), so that if the machine is kept running for a night,
jobs for the next day will still be executed.


     Why this may be useful ?
     ------------------------

   Most Unix-like systems have daily, weekly and monthly scripts that
take care of various "housekeeping chores" such as log-rotation,
updating the "locate" and "man" databases, etc.  Daily scripts are
usually scheduled as cron-jobs to execute around 1-7 AM.  Weekly
scripts are scheduled to run on Sundays.  On machines that are turned
off for the night or for the weekend, these scripts rarely get run.

   Anacron solves this problem.  These jobs can simply be scheduled as
Anacron-jobs with periods of 1, 7 and 30 days.


     What Anacron is not ?
     ---------------------

   Anacron is not an attempt to make cron redundant.  It cannot
currently be used to schedule commands at intervals smaller than days.
It also does not guarantee that the commands will be executed at any
specific day or hour.

   It isn't a full-time daemon.  It has to be executed from boot
scripts, from cron-jobs, or explicitly.


   For more details, see the anacron(8) manpage.


     Requirements
     ------------

 - A Linux system.
 - A functioning syslog daemon.
 - A functioning /usr/lib/sendmail command.  (all MTAs should have
   that).



   Summary of major changes in Anacron 2.0
   ---------------------------------------
* Complete rewrite in C.  Should be backwards compatible with existing
  Anacron installations.
* First release as a "generic" Linux package (was a Debian package).
* No longer needs special lock-files.  Locking is done on the timestamp
  files.
* Sends log messages to syslogd.  There's no log file now.
* Output of jobs, if any, is mailed to the user.
* Added command line options: -s -f -n -d -q -u -V -h.  See the manpage.
* Specific jobs can now be selected on the command line.
* Added SIGUSR1 handling, to cleanly stop execution.
* Jobs will now be started with their current directory set to the home
  of the user running Anacron (usually root).