On Fri, Apr 06, 2012 at 10:24:23AM -0700, Quanah Gibson-Mount wrote:
> >The cron solution is much simpler and more robust. There is no
> >supervisor process running, no need for the child to not exit, no
> >need to instrument postfix start-up by wrapping in kstart, ...
> >
> >Instead, there is a credential-cache on the system that is always
> >unexpired, whether Postfix is still running or not. I used
>
> Which is the whole purpose behind k[5]start too.
In the case of Postfix this offers no advantage over cron.
> >From the web page:
>
> k5start is a modified version of kinit that can use keytabs to
> authenticate, can run as a daemon and wake up periodically to
> refresh a ticket, and can run single commands with their own
> authentication credentials and refresh those credentials until the
> command exits.
>
> When I worked at Stanford, it was an extremely useful utility.
Perhaps so, but apart from "the command exits" condition, which
does not apply to Postfix, there is really no reason to install
additional software to emulate a cron-job. If the OP needs
k5start for other reasons, by all means use it if it seems natural,
but there is no reason to install it just for keeping the Postfix
client SMTP credential cache unexpired.
I should note that the cron-job in question should also run at
system boot time, many crons support "at boot" jobs.
--
Viktor.
