Unmaintained. Ancient. Carries a lot of patches, and has even more bugs reported. Last rites were cancelled due to Gentoo/FreeBSD 1 year ago but that project is dead nowadays. Many alternatives exist, sys-process/cronie is probably the closest one (it's a fork).
Losing the only non-GPL, non-systemd cron really bums me out. cronie may be a fork, but they've added GPL code to it. One file was added as GPL, and there was never a discussion of the license anywhere. They also copied in all of anacron. I get it, though.
Cronie indeed seems to be the only non-systemd cron in Gentoo whose upstream seems to be actively maintained. So switching from vixie-cron to cronie (which is hopefully compatible) seems like the good approach to take... Unfortunately, this might cause users to run into bug #551352 which means that their (potentially critical) cron jobs not run. Having gone through a very regrettable incident due to the breakage of cronie, I plead to keep vixie-cron in the tree at least until bug #551352 is fixed. PS: @mgorny You accidentally referenced bug #693946 in profiles/package.mask instead of this bug.
The bug has been referenced in the following commit(s): https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=e452d8c283c2ddfeb6f47ecd3cb8fccef4fbf653 commit e452d8c283c2ddfeb6f47ecd3cb8fccef4fbf653 Author: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2019-09-16 11:52:06 +0000 Commit: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2019-09-16 11:54:13 +0000 package.mask: Fix typo in vixie-cron bugref Reported-by: Jaak Ristioja Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/694036 Signed-off-by: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> profiles/package.mask | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
I use this. I have my own backlog, but I'll try to make some time to take a look at the bugs in vixie-cron and see if I can fix them. If that goes well, I will take over maintainer-ship.
I also use this and I wouldn't want it any other way! Sure it's old and has bugs, but it's historically *the* cron and somehow manages to be the default cron of Debian (inherited to Ubuntu), whose package is aptly named "cron", and is perfectly well maintained by them: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/cron The BSDs obviously use it too, for instance OpenBSD's version: https://github.com/openbsd/src/tree/master/usr.sbin/cron Cronie is maintained by Fedora and, being close to Red Hat, my crystal ball tells me it's a matter of time until they deprecate it in favor of systemd. It shouldn't be a problem that Paul Vixie himself doesn't work on vixie-cron anymore. For me, it's much more troubling that the alternatives don't handle /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly}/ flawlessly by default. That's the main reason I use vixie-cron, and also to configure cron just like I do on the Debian-based machines I also manage. Portability is a plus. I would be very happy if a new maintainer steps forward. -A user concerned with the systemd-ization of Gentoo
> If that goes well, I will take over maintainer-ship. You're probably too late. vixie-cron was hard-masked 3 weeks ago. In the meantime, most Gentoo users have switched to other cron packages.
> somehow manages to be the default cron of Debian https://wiki.debian.org/cron explains why they still use vixie-cron. They intend to switch to cronie: "The current plan is to switch from Vixie cron 3.1 to current cronie during the bullseye release cycle"
(In reply to Michael Hofmann from comment #7) > > somehow manages to be the default cron of Debian > > https://wiki.debian.org/cron explains why they still use vixie-cron. They > intend to switch to cronie: "The current plan is to switch from Vixie cron > 3.1 to current cronie during the bullseye release cycle" Thanks for the link. Note they also say this: "Because cronie doesn't have all the Debian extensions yet, it is not yet suitable as a cron replacement." I wonder if officially supporting /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly}/ is one of the Debian extensions. I say there's no rush to remove it just yet, it still (mostly) works and doesn't stop users from installing their favorite cron. I, for one, already have this in my private overlay, where it compiles perfectly and it's not going anywhere. Funny how bcron, while upstream-less, maintainer-less and dare I say user-less (hence bug-less), sits happily in the tree. PS: I understand Gentoo packages can't be without a maintainer, and in that case they have to be removed, but actively discouraging a developer from adopting it (like the previous comment) is just scary. It's the sort of thing that fuels conspiracy theorists.
The bug has been closed via the following commit(s): https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=844c30aac22b7b57e2e495417a9e2f0f8cbdfb1b commit 844c30aac22b7b57e2e495417a9e2f0f8cbdfb1b Author: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2019-10-11 15:02:10 +0000 Commit: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2019-10-11 15:03:24 +0000 sys-process/vixie-cron: Remove last-rited pkg Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/694036 Signed-off-by: Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> profiles/default/bsd/fbsd/package.use.mask | 5 - profiles/package.mask | 8 - sys-process/vixie-cron/Manifest | 2 - sys-process/vixie-cron/files/crontab | 15 -- sys-process/vixie-cron/files/crontab-3.0.1-r4 | 14 -- sys-process/vixie-cron/files/crontab.5.diff | 35 ---- sys-process/vixie-cron/files/pamd.compatible | 7 - .../vixie-cron/files/vixie-cron-4.1-basename.diff | 20 -- .../files/vixie-cron-4.1-commandline.patch | 13 -- .../vixie-cron/files/vixie-cron-4.1-cron.deny | 4 - .../files/vixie-cron-4.1-crontabrace.patch | 29 --- .../vixie-cron/files/vixie-cron-4.1-hardlink.patch | 11 - .../vixie-cron/files/vixie-cron-4.1-pam.patch | 67 ------ .../files/vixie-cron-4.1-selinux-2.patch | 225 --------------------- .../files/vixie-cron-4.1-setuid_check.patch | 29 --- sys-process/vixie-cron/files/vixie-cron.rc7 | 12 -- sys-process/vixie-cron/files/vixie-cron.service | 11 - sys-process/vixie-cron/metadata.xml | 5 - sys-process/vixie-cron/vixie-cron-4.1-r15.ebuild | 126 ------------ 19 files changed, 638 deletions(-)
I did not read all that. Where is the news-item telling users why this was dropped and how to move on?
So i will open this one again, instead of creating a new one "i am using vixie-cron what should i do now?"
(In reply to Henning Schild from comment #11) > So i will open this one again, instead of creating a new one "i am using > vixie-cron what should i do now?" no clue how to open it again, maybe i am not allowed ...
Created attachment 652694 [details] virtual/cron allowing vixie-cron As if it wasn't enough to remove a perfectly functioning and supported cron (I use it on all my machines since forever and they haven't spontaneously combusted), they removed it from the cron virtual, suggesting cronie instead. Well, no. Here's a trivial ebuild to keep vixie-cron as an allowed cron for those who have it in their private overlays.
