[5054] in linux-announce channel archive
Linux-Announce Digest #347
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Digestifier)
Thu Feb 9 01:13:15 2006
From: Digestifier <Linux-Announce-Request@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>
To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
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Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 01:13:10 EST
Linux-Announce Digest #347, Volume #5 Thu, 9 Feb 2006 01:13:10 EST
Contents:
Fcron 3.0.1 - a replacement for Vixie cron and anacron (Thibault Godouet)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 23:16:47 -0600
From: Thibault Godouet <fcron@free.fr>
Subject: Fcron 3.0.1 - a replacement for Vixie cron and anacron
What is new in this release (3.0.1) ?
=====================================
* fcrontab: access user's directory with user's rights (necessary if
user/group fcron has not the right to read the directory).
* improvement in check_system_crontabs: more comments, added some
help messages, added command line options, cleaner, safer code.
* Improved English documentation: clarified some previously-unclear
points.
* Added French translation of the manual pages (thanks go to Alain
Portal)
* Removed old documentation from the package.
* Better handling of the pipes in job.c: this should remove some
problems encountered on BSD systems.
* bug fix: do not use a tv_usec > 999999: should fix the problem
encountered on BSD systems with select().
* bug fix: fixed a bug in make_msg(): the size of a string written
to a buffer was not controlled correctly in some cases. This could
result in buffer overflow and thus this was security problem.
However the bug seems not exploitable as the part of the string
which could overflow the buffer could not be freely defined by an
attacker (it was either ": " or one of the strings returned by
strerror()).
* Bug fix: set the FDs correctly for select().
I recommend fcron users to upgrade to 3.0.1 in case the buffer overflow
which has been found in convert-fcrontab of fcron 3.0.0 appears to
be exploitable.
What is fcron ?
==============
Fcron is a scheduler. It aims at replacing Vixie Cron, so it implements
most its functionalities.
But contrary to Vixie Cron, fcron does not need your system to be up 7
days a week, 24 hours a day : it also works well with systems which are
not running neither all the time nor regularly (contrary to anacrontab).
In other words, fcron does both the job of Vixie Cron and anacron, but
does even more and better :)) ...
To do so, fcron allows you to use the standard mode in which you tell
it to execute one command at a given date and hour and to make it run
a command according to its time of execution, which is normally the same
as system up time. For example :
Run the task 'save /home/ directory'
every 3h15 of system up time.
and, of course, in order to make it really useful, the time remaining
until next execution is saved each time the system is stopped.
You can also say :
run that command once between 2am and 5am
which will be done if the system is running at any time in this interval.
Fcron also includes a useful system of options, which can be applied
either to every lines following the declaration or to a single line.
Some of the supported options permit to:
- run jobs one by one,
- set the max system load average value under which the job should be
run,
- set a nice value for a job,
- run jobs at fcron's startup if they should have been run
during system down time,
- mail user to tell him a job has not run and why,
- a better management of the mailing of outputs ...
What is planed for next releases ?
=================================
Please go to http://fcron.free.fr/doc/todo.html
(propositions and help are welcome)
How you can help me
===================
If you'd like to help me, please contact me at :
fcron@free.fr
Where can I get it ?
===================
You can either go to the project home page at :
http://fcron.free.fr
or get it from metalab at :
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/daemons/cron/fcron-3.0.1.src.tar.gz
(525kB)
(I've sent the file but it may take some time before it is available on
metalab)
or get it from seul.org (USA) :
ftp://ftp.seul.org/pub/fcron/fcron-3.0.1.src.tar.gz (525kB)
I hope you will enjoy it,
Thibault.
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