A good cron howto is needed to explain the crontab format for novice users. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
I will do this..
Created attachment 43891 [details] cron-guide cron-guide so far.. I am still going over this and verifying the code blocks... Any suggestions?
Looks very good so far. I would spend some time in the document explaining the time fields in /etc/crontab and how they will effect the execution of commands.
good idea =) hmm, I think i was mistaken about dcron, it might have multipl crontabs =) doh!
If I'm not mistaken I think some cron tabs support extra time/option fields then others, might be something to check for as well. Also it would help to drive home the format of crontab to readers by labeling each field in every code block.
Created attachment 43903 [details] cron-guide.xml I tried to make the fields a little clearer by giving a few more examples. I was also able to add more information about ranged input and steps. The first was was also erroneous with regards to what I thought the time fields meant. This version gives examples that should work on all crons. I do realize that fcron almost supports a syntax of its own because it's so much larger than the other crons, but I won't put that in here unless you guys really think there should be a special "Advanced" section taht goes into more detail about each cron package. I still haven't actually tested the examples on all three crons, but I think by tomorrow I will be able to have that complete. Let me know what you think I should change, this is my first doc submission, and I could certainly use advice. =)
I would remove the line " The choices are <c>vixie-cron</c>, <c>dcron</c>, and <c>fcron</c>." since you already stated the cron variants above. I really like the run through on the time fields. Most Gentoo documentation is rather sparse, which does not do cron justice for the newcomer. I hope the doc team will be gentle with your work and get it onto the doc page quickly.
Eric, tell us when you consider your guide to be good for mass-market ;-) I'll be your editor. Very good guide IMO. Minor glitches: days=1-5/2 is not every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday days are numbered 0-7 (not 1-7), 0 & 7 being Sunday s/her/his/
Created attachment 43949 [details] cron-guide.xml (2) I went over most of the examples and made sure they work in al three crons. I also made various changes, there were still a few subtle errors. At this point, I think I'm willing to leave it in Xavier's hands, but just let me know if there's anything else I need to do.
hold on.. i found a bug =) I found vixie-cron using /etc/crontab, i'll have to correct the howto to explain this (oddly, those cron-jobs don't show up in crontab -l)
Created attachment 44194 [details] cron-guide.xml (3) I added a blurb about how some packages use /etc/crontab, and added a line to help them comment out all of the cron-jobs listed there. I think I am done with this doc..
Created attachment 44420 [details] /doc/en/cron-guide.xml Edited version, mostly cosmetic changes. BTW, why disable the system crontab completely? Why not explain how it is used by default on most Gentoo boxes (/etc/cron.{hour,dai,week,month}ly/) ? Or at least explain how to keep those scripts running if a user decides to comment /etc/crontab's actions. What do you think?
I knew you would say that =) I was just not sure which versions of cron would use it at the time, some have to run the crontab command on it, some don't... I am willing to fix that up a little bit though, so I'll look into it this week when I get around to it.
Created attachment 45178 [details] cron-guide.xml (4) I fixed it up the part about /etc/crontab by giving a better description of what it does, and how to enable/disable cron-jobs listed there. It's really just Vixie-cron that automagically uses it. Also, xsltproc is not using the 's added in lines 339, 340, 341 and 342: cron-guide.xml:342: parser error : Entity 'nbsp' not defined I see how the entries in that table could certainly use spaces there, but maybe we should remove them?
Created attachment 45196 [details] /doc/en/cron-guide.xml Committed version. I rephrased the part about /etc/crontab. I just thought commenting it out would be more confusing than just telling users crontab -l does not list its jobs. Please file a patch against the current version in a new bug if you would like to make changes.
Quick note about those (generated html should define a margin, later) Entities like are defined in guide.dtd You receive a warning because xsltproc cannot find it at /dtd/guide.dtd The easiest way is to add the following line to your /etc/xml/catalog before </catalog>: <rewriteURI uriStartString="/dtd/" rewritePrefix="/usr/portage/metadata/dtd/"/> Try it out with xsltproc That will also allow you to validate your files e.g.: xmllint --noout --valid cron-guide.xml cron-guide should show up on www.g.o Many thanks for your work.
