Solaris™ 9 System Administrator Exam Cram™ 2 (Exams 310-014 and 310-015)

Scheduling Processes

Two commands are available for scheduling automatic execution of processes: cron(1M) and at(1).

The cron Command

The cron command is a daemon started during system boot. It is responsible for executing commands at a future time and perhaps periodically on a scheduled basis. The commands to be executed are specified in a standardized tabular format and stored in files referred to as crontab files. These files are located in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs directory.

Commands that are executed automatically by being placed in a crontab file are referred to as cron jobs. Commands to be executed only once at a future time can be submitted using the at command instead of modifying the crontabs. The at command is described in the ...