Fcron-2.9.4

The Fcron package contains a periodical command scheduler which aims at replacing Vixie Cron.

Fcron uses the cron facility of syslog to log all messages. Since LFS does not set up this facility in /etc/syslog.conf, it needs to be done prior to installing Fcron. This command will append the necessary line to the current /etc/syslog.conf:

cat >> /etc/syslog.conf << "EOF"
# Begin fcron addition to /etc/syslog.conf

cron.* -/var/log/cron.log

# End fcron addition
EOF

The configuration file has been modified, so reloading the sysklogd daemon will activate the changes.

/etc/rc.d/init.d/sysklogd reload

For security reasons, we need to create an unprivileged user and group for fcron:

groupadd fcron &&
useradd -d /dev/null -g fcron -s /bin/false fcron

Install Fcron by running the following commands:

./configure --without-sendmail --with-answer-all=no &&
make &&
make install

--without-sendmail: Fcron does not require an MTA to run but will use one, if it is installed, to email you the results of the fcron script. If you wish to utilize this feature change the switch to --with-sendmail=[path to your MTA] .

--with-answer-all=no: After the files are installed, the make install script enters into a configuration routine. The first test will be whether to install a boot script in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory with the appropriate symbolic links in run levels 2, 3, 4, and 5. The second is to stop any current fcron processes and start a new one. Since this is probably your first install and we want a boot script based upon the BLFS template we answer 'n' to both tests.

--with-dsssl-dir=/usr/share/sgml/docbook/dsssl-stylesheets-1.78 : This switch can be added if you have installed OpenJade and dsssl-stylesheets to generate the documentation from the DocBook source files.

The Fcron package contains fcron, fcrontab, fcronsighup and fcrondyn.