fcrontab

fcrontab is the program intended to install, edit, list and remove the tables used by fcron daemon. As fcron internally uses a non-human readable format (this is needed because fcron saves more information than the user gives, for example the time and date of next execution), the user cannot edit directly his 'fcrontab' (the one used by fcron).

When a user installs a 'fcrontab', the source file is saved in the spool directory (/usr/local/var/spool/fcron) to allow future editions, and a formatted file is generated for the fcron daemon, which is signaled once about ten seconds before the next minute for all changes made previously. The daemon is not informed of the changes immediately but at most once a minute to keep ill disposed users from blocking the daemon by installing 'fcrontabs' over and over (ie. denial of service attack).

Documentation

• man 1 'fcrontab' [EN]
• man 5 'fcrontab' [EN]

Syntax

fcrontab [-u USER] -e | -l | -r

Parameters

-e

Edit user's current 'fcrontab' using either the editor specified by the environment variable VISUAL, or EDITOR if VISUAL is not set. If none or them are set, '/usr/bin/vi' will be used.

-l

List user's current 'fcrontab' to standard output.

-r

Remove user's 'fcrontab'.

-u USER

Specify the USER whose 'fcrontab' will be managed, or 'systab' for the system 'fcrontab'. Should only be used by root. If not given, the 'fcrontab' file of the user invoking 'fcrontab' will be handled. It may be useful since the su command may confuse fcrontab.

Examples

Edit Alex's crontab as root

fcrontab -u 'alex' -e