.\" Copyright (c) 1997 FreeBSD, Inc. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.sbin/periodic/periodic.8,v 1.33 2007/09/07 21:54:45 gabor Exp $ .\" .Dd August 30, 2007 .Os .Dt PERIODIC 8 .Sh NAME .Nm periodic .Nd run periodic system functions .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Ar directory ... .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility is intended to be called by .Xr launchd 8 to execute shell scripts located in the specified directory. .Pp One or more of the following arguments must be specified: .Bl -tag -width ".Pa monthly" .It Pa daily Perform the standard daily periodic executable run. This usually occurs early in the morning (local time). .It Pa weekly Perform the standard weekly periodic executable run. This usually occurs very early on Saturday mornings. .It Pa monthly Perform the standard monthly periodic executable run. This usually occurs on the first day of the month. .It Ar path An arbitrary directory containing a set of executables to be run. .El .Pp If an argument is an absolute directory name it is used as is, otherwise it is searched for under .Pa /etc/periodic and any other directories specified by the .Va local_periodic setting in .Xr periodic.conf 5 (see below). .Pp The .Nm utility will run each executable file in the directory or directories specified. If a file does not have the executable bit set, it is silently ignored. .Pp Each script is required to exit with one of the following values: .Bl -tag -width 4n .It 0 The script has produced nothing notable in its output. The .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_success variable controls the masking of this output. .It 1 The script has produced some notable information in its output. The .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_info variable controls the masking of this output. .It 2 The script has produced some warnings due to invalid configuration settings. The .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_badconfig variable controls the masking of this output. .It >2 The script has produced output that must not be masked. .El .Pp If the relevant variable (where .Aq Ar basedir is the base directory in which the script resides) is set to .Dq Li NO in .Pa periodic.conf , .Nm will mask the script output. If the variable is not set to either .Dq Li YES or .Dq Li NO , it will be given a default value as described in .Xr periodic.conf 5 . .Pp All remaining script output is delivered based on the value of the .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _output setting. .Pp If this is set to a path name (beginning with a .Ql / character), output is simply logged to that file. .Xr newsyslog 8 knows about the files .Pa /var/log/daily.log , /var/log/weekly.log and .Pa /var/log/monthly.log , and if they exist, it will rotate them at the appropriate times. These are therefore good values if you wish to log .Nm output. .Pp If the .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _output value does not begin with a .Ql / and is not empty, it is assumed to contain a list of email addresses, and the output is mailed to them. If .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _show_empty_output is set to .Dq Li NO , then no mail will be sent if the output was empty. .Pp If .Ao Ar basedir Ac Ns Va _output is not set or is empty, output is sent to standard output. .Sh ENVIRONMENT The .Nm utility sets the .Ev PATH environment to include all standard system directories, but no additional directories, such as .Pa /usr/local/bin . If executables are added which depend upon other path components, each executable must be responsible for configuring its own appropriate environment. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width ".Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf" .It Pa /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.periodic-*.plist the .Nm utility is typically called via these .Xr launchd 8 jobs .It Pa /etc/periodic the top level directory containing .Pa daily , .Pa weekly , and .Pa monthly subdirectories which contain standard system periodic executables .It Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf the .Pa periodic.conf system registry contains variables that control the behaviour of .Nm and the standard .Pa daily , weekly , and .Pa monthly scripts .It Pa /etc/periodic.conf this file contains local overrides for the default .Nm configuration .El .Sh EXIT STATUS Exit status is 0 on success and 1 if the command fails. .Sh EXAMPLES The .Pa /etc/defaults/periodic.conf system registry will typically have a .Va local_periodic variable reading: .Pp .Dl local_periodic="/usr/local/etc/periodic" .Pp To log .Nm output instead of receiving it as email, add the following lines to .Pa /etc/periodic.conf : .Bd -literal -offset indent daily_output=/var/log/daily.log weekly_output=/var/log/weekly.log monthly_output=/var/log/monthly.log .Ed .Pp To only see important information from daily periodic jobs, add the following lines to .Pa /etc/periodic.conf : .Bd -literal -offset indent daily_show_success=NO daily_show_info=NO daily_show_badconfig=NO .Ed .Sh DIAGNOSTICS The command may fail for one of the following reasons: .Bl -diag .It usage: periodic <directory of files to execute> No directory path argument was passed to .Nm to specify where the script fragments reside. .It <directory> not found Self explanatory. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr sh 1 , .Xr periodic.conf 5 , .Xr launchd 8 , .Xr newsyslog 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm utility first appeared in .Fx 3.0 . .Sh AUTHORS .An Paul Traina Aq pst@FreeBSD.org .An Brian Somers Aq brian@Awfulhak.org .Sh BUGS Since one specifies information about a directory using shell variables containing the string, .Aq Ar basedir , .Aq Ar basedir must only contain characters that are valid within a .Xr sh 1 variable name, alphanumerics and underscores, and the first character may not be numeric.