DAILY(8) OpenBSD System Manager's Manual DAILY(8)NAME
daily, weekly, monthly - periodic system maintenance
SYNOPSIS
/etc/daily
/etc/weekly
/etc/monthly
DESCRIPTION
The three files /etc/daily, /etc/weekly, and /etc/monthly are shell
scripts run on a periodic basis by the clock daemon, cron(8). They take
care of some basic administrative tasks. Their output, if any, is mailed
to root.
Note: The scripts are all run as part of root's crontab(5). However, it
is strongly suggested that the root mail account be an alias that
forwards messages to a real user or set of users. Otherwise, root's mail
will simply accumulate in /var/mail until the partition holding it runs
out of space. See newaliases(8) for further details.
These scripts should not be altered. Local additions should be made to
the files /etc/daily.local, /etc/weekly.local, and /etc/monthly.local,
which will be executed by /etc/daily, /etc/weekly, and /etc/monthly,
respectively. The *.local files are executed first, which makes it
convenient to do any necessary cleanup and backup and to define any
required shell variables before the script is run.
/etc/daily
This script is run daily. It currently does the following:
- Runs the script /etc/daily.local, if it exists.
- Removes scratch and junk files from /tmp and /var/tmp.
- Removes stale files from the rwhod(8) database.
- Purges accounting records from /var/account, if they exist. See
accton(8) and sa(8).
- Creates a backup root file system which is updated daily. This only
happens if the following conditions are met:
1. The environment variable ROOTBACKUP must be set. For
example, the following can be added to /etc/daily.local:
ROOTBACKUP=1
2. The mount directory /altroot must exist, and there must be
an /etc/fstab entry specifying a configured disk device,
the file system type `ffs', and `xx' for the mount
options, e.g.
/dev/wd0j /altroot ffs xx 0 0
- Checks disk status. Reports on the amount of disk used/available via
df(1). Reports on which file systems need to be dumped via dump(8).
- Reports on the status of the mail queue via mailq(8).
- Reports networking statistics via netstat(1).
- Gives an uptime for every machine which exists in /var/rwho, via the
ruptime(1) utility.
- Runs the calendar(1) utility unless the environment variable CALENDAR
is set to 0 in /etc/daily.local or the host is a yp(8) client.
- If CHECKFILESYSTEMS is set to 1 in /etc/daily.local, runs fsck(8)
with the no-write flag (-n).
- If the file /etc/Distfile exists, runs the rdist(1) utility.
- Runs the system security check script, /etc/security. See
security(8) for further details.
/etc/weekly
This script is run weekly. It currently does the following:
- Runs the script /etc/weekly.local, if it exists.
- Rebuilds the locate(1) database, if there is an existing
/var/db/locate.database file.
- Rebuilds the whatis(1)database(s) via makewhatis(8).
- If LOGINACCOUNTING is set to 1 in /etc/weekly.local and the
/var/log/wtmp file exists, show individual users' login via the ac(8)
utility.
/etc/monthly
This script is run monthly. It currently does the following:
- Runs the script /etc/monthly.local, if it exists.
ENVIRONMENT
The following variables can be set in /etc/daily.local:
CALENDAR If set to 1, run calendar(1).
CHECKFILESYSTEMS If set to 1, run fsck(8) with the no-write flag.
ROOTBACKUP If set to 1, make a backup of the root file system.
VERBOSESTATUS If set to 0, df(1), dump(8), netstat(1), and ruptime(1)
are skipped. Consequently, if none of the other
commands produce any output, no mail will be sent to
root.
The following variables can be set in /etc/weekly.local:
LOGINACCOUNTING If set to 1, run ac(8) to report login accounting.
FILES
/etc/daily Daily maintenance script.
/etc/daily.local Site specific daily maintenance script.
/etc/weekly Weekly maintenance script.
/etc/weekly.local Site specific weekly maintenance script.
/etc/monthly Monthly maintenance script.
/etc/monthly.local Site specific monthly maintenance script.
/var/cron/tabs/root Root crontab(5).
SEE ALSOcalendar(1), crontab(1), df(1), locate(1), netstat(1), rdist(1),
ruptime(1), rwho(1), whatis(1), crontab(5), ac(8), accton(8), cron(8),
dump(8), fsck(8), mailq(8), makewhatis(8), sa(8), security(8), yp(8)HISTORY
This manual page first appeared in OpenBSD 3.4.
CAVEATS
If the host machine is not running 24/7, these scripts may never be run.
Adjusting the time fields in the system crontab(5) may partially
alleviate this problem.
Be careful when adding local additions. Services such as "www" have
their own users, and should be run as such, not as root. It may be more
appropriate to create a separate crontab(5) for such services.
OpenBSD 4.9 September 22, 2010 OpenBSD 4.9