[NTLUG:Discuss] testing and results Re: crontab issue

[Robert Pearson]

On 3/15/07, Fred James <fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net> wrote:
> Robert Citek wrote:
> ...snip...
> Robert Citek
> Distro: Mandrake/Mandriva 9.x, 10.x, and 2006
> Problem: as root with root crontab, it seemed to be working (more
> testing maybe?), but as another user with their crontab there are still
> some issues.
> One glaring issue is that the cron itself ignore the DST set by TZ.  In
> my case I can live with it, at least now, but ...
> Regards
> Fred James

Depending on your goal and desired objectives the "Vixie cron" that
comes with Linux may not have enough capability.

In the Stone Age of *nix, cron was mainly a scheduler for some very
sophisticated Bourne shell scripts. Scripts which got even slicker,
easier to write and more powerful as scripting languages like Perl and
Python became available. I wrote a lot of these and got caught in
"maintenance/update/upgrade hell".

With Windows, and other non-*nix, cross-platform requirements things
got even messier.

I have to say that like all *nix software, particularly Unix, cron
was/is capable of being extended far beyond any use the original
developers imagined. And has been extended so. You are only limited by
your ingenuity and your boss.

There are some freeware, shareware and commercially available crons
today that work better for some needs.