Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:32 AM, David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2011 10:34 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. You are correct. The long term stability was just my thought. Like I said earlier in my message -- It doesn't matter to me which cron we have -- as long as we have one that works :) I have no say in the matter, so I will, of course, defer to whatever decision you guys reach. I just want to make sure we have a cron by default :) So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 21.04.2011 08:32, Kaiting Chen wrote: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:32 AM, David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2011 10:34 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. You are correct. The long term stability was just my thought. Like I said earlier in my message -- It doesn't matter to me which cron we have -- as long as we have one that works :) I have no say in the matter, so I will, of course, defer to whatever decision you guys reach. I just want to make sure we have a cron by default :) So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Kaiting said he would even be willing to become a developer to maintain this in [core] himself in case no other developer was interested. Is there anything that would keep us from making it default and also replace dcron? -- Sven-Hendrik
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Kaiting Chen wrote: So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. You forgot to remove it from the AUR though: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37260 No matter which cron implemention replaces dcron that means that most likely dcron will be dropped to the AUR, so it would be nice having 2 implementions in binary form, despite the fact that cronie only has 4 votes. Has anyone actually tested it as a dcron replacement on Arch, now that its built with anacron support? Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 02:32:42AM -0400, Kaiting Chen wrote: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:32 AM, David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2011 10:34 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. You are correct. The long term stability was just my thought. Like I said earlier in my message -- It doesn't matter to me which cron we have -- as long as we have one that works :) I have no say in the matter, so I will, of course, defer to whatever decision you guys reach. I just want to make sure we have a cron by default :) So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. I don't want to be pedantic, but what's the point of that? Moving arbitrary cron daemons that no one uses to [community] is nonsense (according to the TU guidelines, you shouldn't even have moved it without prior discussion and consensus on aur-general at all - but as I said before, I don't want to be pedantic here...) Adding yet another cron daemon to our repositories makes sense as soon as there's a clear decision to switch default daemons. Just moving low usage stuff to [community] because you're able to do so definitely doesn't...
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haase s...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. And cronie still has only 4 votes in AUR after one year! Why? Could have a reason as packages which are useful and/or necessary for several people are usually getting a lot more votes in much less time. I can be wrong, but I really have the feeling that switching the default cron daemon to cronie will be a big mistake. And wasn't there someone who wanted to test both daemons and write a feature comparison? Nothing heard about it anymore. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:18:33 +0200 schrieb Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de: I can be wrong, but I really have the feeling that switching the default cron daemon to cronie will be a big mistake. And, btw., what's about the licenses? fcron is GPL, cronie has a custom license called ISC. I don't know this ISC but this should be checked before. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:27:07 +0200, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:18:33 +0200 schrieb Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de: And, btw., what's about the licenses? fcron is GPL, cronie has a custom license called ISC. I don't know this ISC but this should be checked before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license I don't think these 3 lines need much checking. -- The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thursday, April 21, 2011 01:48:04 Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote: On 21.04.2011 08:32, Kaiting Chen wrote: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:32 AM, David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2011 10:34 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. You are correct. The long term stability was just my thought. Like I said earlier in my message -- It doesn't matter to me which cron we have -- as long as we have one that works :) I have no say in the matter, so I will, of course, defer to whatever decision you guys reach. I just want to make sure we have a cron by default :) So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Kaiting said he would even be willing to become a developer to maintain this in [core] himself in case no other developer was interested. Is there anything that would keep us from making it default and also replace dcron? -- Sven-Hendrik I'm still trying to understand WHY we suddenly feel the need to replace dcron when its not even broken. Replacing packages with other packages purely because they're new is something Fedora and Ubuntu would do, I though Arch wasn't about arbitrarily replacing its defaults but using what was simple and what works. Can someone explain to me why we think we need a new crond?
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Yaro Kasear y...@marupa.net wrote: On Thursday, April 21, 2011 01:48:04 Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote: On 21.04.2011 08:32, Kaiting Chen wrote: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:32 AM, David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2011 10:34 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. You are correct. The long term stability was just my thought. Like I said earlier in my message -- It doesn't matter to me which cron we have -- as long as we have one that works :) I have no say in the matter, so I will, of course, defer to whatever decision you guys reach. I just want to make sure we have a cron by default :) So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Kaiting said he would even be willing to become a developer to maintain this in [core] himself in case no other developer was interested. Is there anything that would keep us from making it default and also replace dcron? -- Sven-Hendrik I'm still trying to understand WHY we suddenly feel the need to replace dcron when its not even broken. Replacing packages with other packages purely because they're new is something Fedora and Ubuntu would do, I though Arch wasn't about arbitrarily replacing its defaults but using what was simple and what works. Can someone explain to me why we think we need a new crond? The discussion is based on upstream not responding to bugs in dcron and the overall lack of upstream development/responsiveness.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Yaro Kasear wrote: I'm still trying to understand WHY we suddenly feel the need to replace dcron when its not even broken. Replacing packages with other packages purely because they're new is something Fedora and Ubuntu would do, I though Arch wasn't about arbitrarily replacing its defaults but using what was simple and what works. Can someone explain to me why we think we need a new crond? Because of these: https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=dcronproject=1 Mostly https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681 Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
I'm still trying to understand WHY we suddenly feel the need to replace dcron when its not even broken. Actually dcron is broken quite badly. Sometimes the cron job is run several times in a row, sometimes it's not run at all. The dcron developer said he will fix it soon, but it was about a year ago and still nothing. Lukas
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. -- Ionuț
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Ionut Biru ib...@archlinux.org wrote: On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. personally i can't stand crons at all; IME they are usually used for hack job workarounds to other problems, and i avoid them at all costs, preferring boundary triggers or other event-based activation points. crons tend to end up forgotten and separated from other application logic. while i totally agree that a new one is needed if the current one has such fundamental problems, i'm with the guy that says systemd will obsolete it anyways. as far as i'm concerned, `cron` and `init` are the same program, differing only by _when_ they run stuff. the power and flexibility of systemd and it's configuration provide for unprecedented precision and control over your timed executions. let's make a smarter Arch ... init/cron are not smart. just the other day i had to tweak a debian sqeeze system (which uses upstart btw) and the LSB scripts + half-baked dependency system was rather painful IMO, and it made me appreciate the systemd readability even more ... Arch may end up being the only distro that cares about sysvinit :-( not trying to derail the conversation, i just think it's relevant ... when i: # tree /etc/systemd i get a nice neat view of what my system will do at boot time, or any other time. i haven't had a chance to try it yet, but i believe each user could potentially have their own ~/unit directory, and systemd could run stuff from there too. C Anthony
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 9:33 PM, Ionut Biru ib...@archlinux.org wrote: Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. +1 from me for replacing dcron like this, but with fcron, not cronie.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. How is that possible? Are you saying that the broken dcron will stay in core and there will two packages for cron? Otherwise i dont understand how it wont be replaced (for all users). Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 04/22/2011 12:11 AM, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. How is that possible? Are you saying that the broken dcron will stay in core and there will two packages for cron? Otherwise i dont understand how it wont be replaced (for all users). if this will happen, the steps are very simple 1) remove dcron from core 2) add cronie/fcron to core in base group and depending on the package, it might have conflicts=dcron but not replaces this way the existent systems will still have a working cron and new installations will have the new cron -- Ionuț
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/22/2011 12:11 AM, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. How is that possible? Are you saying that the broken dcron will stay in core and there will two packages for cron? Otherwise i dont understand how it wont be replaced (for all users). if this will happen, the steps are very simple 1) remove dcron from core 2) add cronie/fcron to core in base group and depending on the package, it might have conflicts=dcron but not replaces this way the existent systems will still have a working cron and new installations will have the new cron Has that ever happened before? That means the existing systems will have a package from base thats not supported by the Arch developers. But since its not replaced, it would make it an infinite part of Arch so it should also be supported. Plus, the 2010.05 ISOs will still (try to) install it, but it wont be there, and there wont be an upgrade path either. Anyway, first time i've heard about such a plan. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I seriously doubt its gonna work. But good luck. Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, 21 Apr 2011, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Because of these: https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=dcronproject=1 Mostly https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681 The run many times per day bug hasn't bitten me since months ago. And I used to see it really often. Maybe it is fixed? Dimitris
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Apr 21, 2011, at 17:30, Grigorios Bouzakis grb...@xsmail.com wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/22/2011 12:11 AM, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. How is that possible? Are you saying that the broken dcron will stay in core and there will two packages for cron? Otherwise i dont understand how it wont be replaced (for all users). if this will happen, the steps are very simple 1) remove dcron from core 2) add cronie/fcron to core in base group and depending on the package, it might have conflicts=dcron but not replaces this way the existent systems will still have a working cron and new installations will have the new cron Has that ever happened before? That means the existing systems will have a package from base thats not supported by the Arch developers. But since its not replaced, it would make it an infinite part of Arch so it should also be supported. Plus, the 2010.05 ISOs will still (try to) install it, but it wont be there, and there wont be an upgrade path either. Anyway, first time i've heard about such a plan. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I seriously doubt its gonna work. But good luck. Greg Things have got to be deprecated eventually. Why can't we keep dcron in [core] for a while longer? And remove it when any install media that requires it becomes unsupported? Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 22/04/11 00:30, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: if this will happen, the steps are very simple 1) remove dcron from core 2) add cronie/fcron to core in base group and depending on the package, it might have conflicts=dcron but not replaces this way the existent systems will still have a working cron and new installations will have the new cron Has that ever happened before? That means the existing systems will have a package from base thats not supported by the Arch developers. The package will no longer be in the 'base' group, and most likely end up in the AUR. Therefore, it will not be a supported package, and the output of `pacman -Qm' will reflect that. But since its not replaced, it would make it an infinite part of Arch so it should also be supported. As I mention above, my understanding is that dcron will be moved to the AUR. Plus, the 2010.05 ISOs will still (try to) install it, but it wont be there, and there wont be an upgrade path either. In offline installations, the package will exist on the installation media. On netinstalls, the new cron daemon will get installed to the target system instead. Anyway, first time i've heard about such a plan. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I seriously doubt its gonna work. But good luck.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Kaiting Chen wrote: On Apr 21, 2011, at 17:30, Grigorios Bouzakis grb...@xsmail.com wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/22/2011 12:11 AM, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: On 04/21/2011 02:18 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:48:04 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haases...@lutzhaase.com: I second this suggestion. cronie upstream isn't dead at all. cronie is a drop-in unlike fcron which was favored earlier. Is it such a drop-in like the new dcron when dcron upstream was adopted by this Arch user? Better look at the features and the use cases (don't only think of some 24/7 servers, but also think of the desktop users) and not at some small differences in the crontab syntax. It's definitely not such a big work to re-adjust a few crontab entries if this is necessary at all. And this work has to be done only once and can probably be done with sed. i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. How is that possible? Are you saying that the broken dcron will stay in core and there will two packages for cron? Otherwise i dont understand how it wont be replaced (for all users). if this will happen, the steps are very simple 1) remove dcron from core 2) add cronie/fcron to core in base group and depending on the package, it might have conflicts=dcron but not replaces this way the existent systems will still have a working cron and new installations will have the new cron Has that ever happened before? That means the existing systems will have a package from base thats not supported by the Arch developers. But since its not replaced, it would make it an infinite part of Arch so it should also be supported. Plus, the 2010.05 ISOs will still (try to) install it, but it wont be there, and there wont be an upgrade path either. Anyway, first time i've heard about such a plan. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I seriously doubt its gonna work. But good luck. Greg Things have got to be deprecated eventually. If/when they cease to work, or simply don't cover people's needs, naturally. Why can't we keep dcron in [core] for a while longer? And remove it when any install media that requires it becomes unsupported? I didn't say you can't keep it in core. This discussion keeps coming up every few months because apparently dcron doesn't work correctly so the question should be is there any reason to keep it? and not the opposite. No matter how much time 'a while longer' is you'll always have to replace it with something that provides the same functionality in order to avoid the stuff i wrote above. Removing a package from the repos has happened many times before and will happen again but its very different removing eg. catalyst than removing a package from core, let alone base. A package from base is a package that you assume its present on every system. A package that part of base is obviously a very important part of the system. You can't just remove it or choose to ignore its there. Does dcron work? Yes? Then stick to it. No? Then replace it with something that works. PS. If cron is deprecated in favour of systemd which is so awesome, why is Red Hat paying someone to work on cronie? Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Evangelos Foutras wrote: On 22/04/11 00:30, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Ionut Biru wrote: if this will happen, the steps are very simple 1) remove dcron from core 2) add cronie/fcron to core in base group and depending on the package, it might have conflicts=dcron but not replaces this way the existent systems will still have a working cron and new installations will have the new cron Has that ever happened before? That means the existing systems will have a package from base thats not supported by the Arch developers. The package will no longer be in the 'base' group, and most likely end up in the AUR. Therefore, it will not be a supported package, and the output of `pacman -Qm' will reflect that. But since its not replaced, it would make it an infinite part of Arch so it should also be supported. As I mention above, my understanding is that dcron will be moved to the AUR. Plus, the 2010.05 ISOs will still (try to) install it, but it wont be there, and there wont be an upgrade path either. In offline installations, the package will exist on the installation media. On netinstalls, the new cron daemon will get installed to the target system instead. An unsupported package installed by the official installation media. Like i said it doesnt make sense to me. But you got a plan. So just go with it. And hopefully there'll never be another debate about cron around here in the future. Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 22/04/11 10:18, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: An unsupported package installed by the official installation media. Like i said it doesnt make sense to me. But you got a plan. So just go with it. And hopefully there'll never be another debate about cron around here in the future. There is actually a plan? I though there was just a bunch of talk so far...
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:33:57 +0300 schrieb Ionut Biru ib...@archlinux.org: i think you are not understanding the process. if cronie is moved in core, it won't have a replaces=dcron. Only new installations will get cronie by default instead of dcron. I understand this exactly. But I still have the feeling that making cronie as the default cron daemon could be a mistake. I also know that the question is just about a default for new installations and not about having just only one cron in the repos. Nevertheless those features and use cases should be taken into consideration because Arch Linux is not only installed on 24/7 servers but also on desktops. So a default cron daemon should fit both needs and not only one. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Dimitrios Apostolou [2011.04.22 0126 +0300]: On Thu, 21 Apr 2011, Grigorios Bouzakis wrote: Because of these: https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=dcronproject=1 Mostly https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681 The run many times per day bug hasn't bitten me since months ago. And I used to see it really often. Maybe it is fixed? Nope. Just saw it yesterday. N.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu 21 Apr 2011 10:46 +0200, Lukas Fleischer wrote: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 02:32:42AM -0400, Kaiting Chen wrote: So what's the status here? I pulled cronie into [community-testing] a couple of days ago and will probably merge it into [community] soon. So that's the one I vote. But regardless of which one we choose in my opinion the sooner we get rid of dcron the better. --Kaiting. I don't want to be pedantic, but what's the point of that? Moving arbitrary cron daemons that no one uses to [community] is nonsense (according to the TU guidelines, you shouldn't even have moved it without prior discussion and consensus on aur-general at all - but as I said before, I don't want to be pedantic here...) This is supposed to be a rule, not just a guideline. The rule doesn't exactly apply to [community-testing]. Perhaps it should? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_Trusted_User_Guidelines#Rules_for_Packages_Entering_the_.5Bcommunity.5D_Repo
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, 7 Apr 2011 23:16:46 +0200 Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote: On the other hand this issue could be solved in a different way without any further discussions. There's a need for installing one cron daemon, but no need for a default cron daemon. It's pretty the same issue as with the bootloaders. There's no default bootloader anymore and currently it doesn't make sense anymore to define one bootloader as the default, because they all have different features and it depends on the system configuration which bootloader is the best. In the development isos AIF asks the user to choose one of currently two bootloaders (grub and syslinux), more (grub2 and lilo) could or should be added. And this bootloader is automatically chosen by AIF in the package selection. The same could be made for the cron daemons. Put every cron daemon into [core] and let the user choose his preferred cron daemon during installation. Can we do the same thing for cron daemons? Don't other packages contain crontab files, or something like that? I.e. is it possible to just swap crons and keep a (stock) Arch system working? If so, it *could* be possible to do what you suggest, but don't forget, Arch primary objective is simplicity, not choice. If there is a cron daemon that does what we need, we should just make it the default, period. Dieter
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:33 AM, Dieter Plaetinck die...@plaetinck.bewrote: On the other hand this issue could be solved in a different way without any further discussions. There's a need for installing one cron daemon, but no need for a default cron daemon. It's pretty the same issue as with the bootloaders. There's no default bootloader anymore and currently it doesn't make sense anymore to define one bootloader as the default, because they all have different features and it depends on the system configuration which bootloader is the best. In the development isos AIF asks the user to choose one of currently two bootloaders (grub and syslinux), more (grub2 and lilo) could or should be added. And this bootloader is automatically chosen by AIF in the package selection. The same could be made for the cron daemons. Put every cron daemon into [core] and let the user choose his preferred cron daemon during installation. Can we do the same thing for cron daemons? Don't other packages contain crontab files, or something like that? I.e. is it possible to just swap crons and keep a (stock) Arch system working? If so, it *could* be possible to do what you suggest, but don't forget, Arch primary objective is simplicity, not choice. If there is a cron daemon that does what we need, we should just make it the default, period. I think we're talking about what the default daemon should be, as in the one that comes installed with the system on a clean install. Crazy idea but what if Arch just didn't come with a cron? --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, 8 Apr 2011 06:45:29 -0400 Kaiting Chen kaitocr...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:33 AM, Dieter Plaetinck die...@plaetinck.bewrote: On the other hand this issue could be solved in a different way without any further discussions. There's a need for installing one cron daemon, but no need for a default cron daemon. It's pretty the same issue as with the bootloaders. There's no default bootloader anymore and currently it doesn't make sense anymore to define one bootloader as the default, because they all have different features and it depends on the system configuration which bootloader is the best. In the development isos AIF asks the user to choose one of currently two bootloaders (grub and syslinux), more (grub2 and lilo) could or should be added. And this bootloader is automatically chosen by AIF in the package selection. The same could be made for the cron daemons. Put every cron daemon into [core] and let the user choose his preferred cron daemon during installation. Can we do the same thing for cron daemons? Don't other packages contain crontab files, or something like that? I.e. is it possible to just swap crons and keep a (stock) Arch system working? If so, it *could* be possible to do what you suggest, but don't forget, Arch primary objective is simplicity, not choice. If there is a cron daemon that does what we need, we should just make it the default, period. I think we're talking about what the default daemon should be, as in the one that comes installed with the system on a clean install. Maybe you should actually read the text I quoted. Just a thought. Dieter
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 6:46 AM, Dieter Plaetinck die...@plaetinck.bewrote: On Fri, 8 Apr 2011 06:45:29 -0400 Kaiting Chen kaitocr...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:33 AM, Dieter Plaetinck die...@plaetinck.bewrote: On the other hand this issue could be solved in a different way without any further discussions. There's a need for installing one cron daemon, but no need for a default cron daemon. It's pretty the same issue as with the bootloaders. There's no default bootloader anymore and currently it doesn't make sense anymore to define one bootloader as the default, because they all have different features and it depends on the system configuration which bootloader is the best. In the development isos AIF asks the user to choose one of currently two bootloaders (grub and syslinux), more (grub2 and lilo) could or should be added. And this bootloader is automatically chosen by AIF in the package selection. The same could be made for the cron daemons. Put every cron daemon into [core] and let the user choose his preferred cron daemon during installation. Can we do the same thing for cron daemons? Don't other packages contain crontab files, or something like that? I.e. is it possible to just swap crons and keep a (stock) Arch system working? If so, it *could* be possible to do what you suggest, but don't forget, Arch primary objective is simplicity, not choice. If there is a cron daemon that does what we need, we should just make it the default, period. I think we're talking about what the default daemon should be, as in the one that comes installed with the system on a clean install. Maybe you should actually read the text I quoted. Just a thought. My mistake, sort of glanced over it too quickly. --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 08/04/11 07:16, Heiko Baums wrote: But let's try to get objective again. No need. A new cron for [core] has to pass only one condition... :) 1) a developer is willing to maintain it. So far that seems to be Thomas and fcron. Anyway, I recall mention in our bug report of a patch being submitted upstream that fixed the dcron timing issue. Would this be solved - at least in the short term - if we got a copy of that patch and fixed dcron? Allan
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 1:33 AM, Dieter Plaetinck die...@plaetinck.bewrote: On Thu, 7 Apr 2011 23:16:46 +0200 Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote: On the other hand this issue could be solved in a different way without any further discussions. There's a need for installing one cron daemon, but no need for a default cron daemon. It's pretty the same issue as with the bootloaders. There's no default bootloader anymore and currently it doesn't make sense anymore to define one bootloader as the default, because they all have different features and it depends on the system configuration which bootloader is the best. In the development isos AIF asks the user to choose one of currently two bootloaders (grub and syslinux), more (grub2 and lilo) could or should be added. And this bootloader is automatically chosen by AIF in the package selection. The same could be made for the cron daemons. Put every cron daemon into [core] and let the user choose his preferred cron daemon during installation. Can we do the same thing for cron daemons? Don't other packages contain crontab files, or something like that? I.e. is it possible to just swap crons and keep a (stock) Arch system working? If so, it *could* be possible to do what you suggest, but don't forget, Arch primary objective is simplicity, not choice. If there is a cron daemon that does what we need, we should just make it the default, period. Dieter Yes, If we start making the user pick all of these things in the installer than we end up with a bit of a can of worms, we would end up with making more installer level choices, like system logger, systemd and many other cumbersome questions that I don't think belong in the installer. My vote on this concept is simplicity. Just provide a default.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 5:42 AM, Allan McRae al...@archlinux.org wrote: On 08/04/11 07:16, Heiko Baums wrote: But let's try to get objective again. No need. A new cron for [core] has to pass only one condition... :) 1) a developer is willing to maintain it. So far that seems to be Thomas and fcron. Anyway, I recall mention in our bug report of a patch being submitted upstream that fixed the dcron timing issue. Would this be solved - at least in the short term - if we got a copy of that patch and fixed dcron? Allan My only concern with the continued use of dcron is the fact that this bug took well over a year to be fixed, and we don't know if it is fixed with the patch. As for finding a maintainer, I hope that would not be too difficult, cronie and fcron are not complex packages.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 04/06/2011 10:34 PM, Heiko Baums wrote: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. Heiko, You are correct. The long term stability was just my thought. Like I said earlier in my message -- It doesn't matter to me which cron we have -- as long as we have one that works :) I have no say in the matter, so I will, of course, defer to whatever decision you guys reach. I just want to make sure we have a cron by default :) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am 07.04.2011 04:30, schrieb Thomas S Hatch: Right, both are viable choices, btw I will be migrating my datacenters away from dcron in the near future and doing a series of tests on cronie and fcron, I will post my findings to the list. I think that will be more valuable than any continuation of this discussion, and it would be very much appreciated. Right now, cronie looks like a better candidate, although I am still a fan of fcron. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 22:03:23 -0600 schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com: I would say that we should consider compatibility with vixie cron syntax - this is and has been the expected syntax for the default cron daemon for a LONG time and avoids hindering Arch Linux adoption. Why do you need vixie cron syntax? Can't you migrate once to a new syntax? Btw., most of fcron's syntax is the same as the syntax of every cron daemon. You can easily take your previous crontabs. You probably have only to do some changes which could most likely be done by sed. In first place you need stability, reliability and useful features. And this is given by fcron. And don't tell me anything about compatibility. I would consider this argument if fcron was a new cron daemon and if it was totally incompatible. Fcron is known since years and it's known to be stable and reliable, while cronie seems to be pretty new. There are absolutely no informations about cronie's features, no documentations, no feature comparisons to other cron daemons, etc. on upstream's website. And it's still in AUR and has only 3 votes there. I spent quite some time as a trainer for Red Hat and taught classes on SELinux. Is this why you want to push cronie so heavily? Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 20:30:46 -0600 schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com: Right, both are viable choices, btw I will be migrating my datacenters away from dcron in the near future and doing a series of tests on cronie and fcron, I will post my findings to the list. Data center? So the systems are running 24/7? But you take into consideration that there are home users whose computers are not running 24/7 and that they also need to have their cron tasks run reliably? So I hope you test this, too. See bootrun. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 2:16 AM, Thomas Bächler tho...@archlinux.org wrote: Am 07.04.2011 04:30, schrieb Thomas S Hatch: Right, both are viable choices, btw I will be migrating my datacenters away from dcron in the near future and doing a series of tests on cronie and fcron, I will post my findings to the list. I think that will be more valuable than any continuation of this discussion, and it would be very much appreciated. Right now, cronie looks like a better candidate, although I am still a fan of fcron. Thanks Thomas, as you know I am very busy, but I will post my findings when I am done. As always, I hope I can help Arch get better!
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wednesday, April 06, 2011 15:27:27 Thomas Bächler wrote: Am 05.04.2011 09:19, schrieb Thomas S Hatch: I can think of three considerations for a cron daemon: 1 . Minimal - its a cron daemon, it does not need to be complex 2. Active development 3. Anacron functionality As far as I can see this leaves us with fcron, dcron and cronie. Cronie probably has the highest assurance for upstream development because it is backed by redhat. But I think that having a cron daemon as default that has issues executing jobs on time and as they are defined is highly questionable. Before the current maintainer took over dcron, we had that same discussion. Aaron even contacted the fcron maintainer (he posted the reply to arch-general or arch-dev-public, if anyone could find the link in the archives, please post it). The author responded that he considered fcron feature-complete, so didn't develop it anymore. However, he would fix bugs when they are reported, and I think there are no known bugs right now. That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like fcron a lot. As for your conditions: 1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of features. It is by no means minimal though. 2) I commented on that above. 3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard crontab entries and add bootrun to the beginning of the line to repeat missed cronjobs. I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more. Losing /etc/cron.d support is a bit of a dealbreaker for me. I think that's a rather huge feature to leave out of a crond.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thursday 07 of April 2011 12:32:50 Heiko Baums wrote: Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 22:03:23 -0600 I spent quite some time as a trainer for Red Hat and taught classes on SELinux. Is this why you want to push cronie so heavily? Heiko Sorry to sound rude, but Heiko, it's you who is pushing fcron so unhealthily heavily. I wouldn't have no opinion on the two crons but after reading the discussion I'd stick to cronie. Just my 2c. Cheers, mark -- Marek Otahal :o) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:53:58 +0200 schrieb Marek Otahal markota...@gmail.com: Sorry to sound rude, but Heiko, it's you who is pushing fcron so unhealthily heavily. I wouldn't have no opinion on the two crons but after reading the discussion I'd stick to cronie. Just my 2c. Well, on the one hand yes, on the other hand no. But let's try to get objective again. dcron: Known to be buggy. fcron: Known to work reliably since years, works for 24/7 servers as well as for home desktop computers, features are known and well documented on upstream's website. cronie: Quite new, not known well, if at all, and at least I can't find neither a feature list nor a documentation on upstream's website. Doesn't seem to work for home desktop computers, at least not as easy as fcron (separate crontab and anacrontab), from what I read in this thread and from the very few descriptions on upstream's website. A feature comparison between all the cron daemons, at least between fcron and cronie would be nice. That are my concerns. Again, it's just a question about the default cron daemon, not the one and only in the repos. I wouldn't care, btw., if cronie would go into the repos, too, even if it has only 3 votes in AUR, yet. On the other hand this issue could be solved in a different way without any further discussions. There's a need for installing one cron daemon, but no need for a default cron daemon. It's pretty the same issue as with the bootloaders. There's no default bootloader anymore and currently it doesn't make sense anymore to define one bootloader as the default, because they all have different features and it depends on the system configuration which bootloader is the best. In the development isos AIF asks the user to choose one of currently two bootloaders (grub and syslinux), more (grub2 and lilo) could or should be added. And this bootloader is automatically chosen by AIF in the package selection. The same could be made for the cron daemons. Put every cron daemon into [core] and let the user choose his preferred cron daemon during installation. But if this shouldn't be done, and if there shall be a default cron daemon it must be a daemon which fulfills every use case and not only the needs of servers which are running 24/7. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Thu, 7 Apr 2011 23:16:46 +0200 schrieb Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de: But let's try to get objective again. Btw., generally it doesn't really matter that much which cron daemon is installed by AIF. Another cron daemon can easily be installed afterwards. A cron daemon is not such an important and sensible software as a bootloader. So the question about a default cron daemon is rather a question of user-friendliness. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote: Why do you need vixie cron syntax? Can't you migrate once to a new syntax? Btw., most of fcron's syntax is the same as the syntax of every cron daemon. You can easily take your previous crontabs. You probably have only to do some changes which could most likely be done by sed. In first place you need stability, reliability and useful features. And this is given by fcron. And don't tell me anything about compatibility. I would consider this argument if fcron was a new cron daemon and if it was totally incompatible. Fcron is known since years and it's known to be stable and reliable, while cronie seems to be pretty new. There are absolutely no informations about cronie's features, no documentations, no feature comparisons to other cron daemons, etc. on upstream's website. And it's still in AUR and has only 3 votes there. The thing is that cronie is forked from vixie-cron which is much older than fcron. And I would venture to say that vixie-cron or some derivative is the default crond for the vast majority of distributions out there. --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 08.04.2011 00:15, Kaiting Chen wrote: On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote: Why do you need vixie cron syntax? Can't you migrate once to a new syntax? Btw., most of fcron's syntax is the same as the syntax of every cron daemon. You can easily take your previous crontabs. You probably have only to do some changes which could most likely be done by sed. In first place you need stability, reliability and useful features. And this is given by fcron. And don't tell me anything about compatibility. I would consider this argument if fcron was a new cron daemon and if it was totally incompatible. Fcron is known since years and it's known to be stable and reliable, while cronie seems to be pretty new. There are absolutely no informations about cronie's features, no documentations, no feature comparisons to other cron daemons, etc. on upstream's website. And it's still in AUR and has only 3 votes there. The thing is that cronie is forked from vixie-cron which is much older than fcron. And I would venture to say that vixie-cron or some derivative is the default crond for the vast majority of distributions out there. --Kaiting. cronie also appears to be the nicest migration choice for users who are not used to fcron. It seems to support anachron features, cron.d, daily/weekly/etc, is able to actually keep time and works just like expected whereas fcron has fcrontab with a slightly different syntax. We could actually make cronie replace dcron. fcron would be nice but it is not a drop in like cronie. What do you say? If you agree, I shall make (or somebody who steps up) a plan to the replacement and that's that. -- Sven-Hendrik
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
cronie also appears to be the nicest migration choice for users who are not used to fcron. It seems to support anachron features, cron.d, daily/weekly/etc, is able to actually keep time and works just like expected whereas fcron has fcrontab with a slightly different syntax. We could actually make cronie replace dcron. fcron would be nice but it is not a drop in like cronie. What do you say? If you agree, I shall make (or somebody who steps up) a plan to the replacement and that's that. -- Sven-Hendrik I agree with Sven, the more I look into it the more I think that cronie is the right way to go for a default cron daemon. With that said, the more I have learned about fcron the more I have liked it! +1
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Kaiting Chen wrote: The thing is that cronie is forked from vixie-cron which is much older than fcron. And I would venture to say that vixie-cron or some derivative is the default crond for the vast majority of distributions out there. --Kaiting. Why do you have --disable-anacron in the build in the AUR? That probably makes it as useless as vixie-cron or the old dcron (3.x versions). Do you use a seperate anacron? Is there something wrong with cronie's anacron? Greg
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:34:42 +0200 Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote: cronie also appears to be the nicest migration choice for users who are not used to fcron. It seems to support anachron features, cron.d, daily/weekly/etc, is able to actually keep time and works just like expected whereas fcron has fcrontab with a slightly different syntax. We could actually make cronie replace dcron. I agree with this instead i'm a fcron user. But because it is say so much often, is there really anyone who have something in /etc/cron.d? See you, Attila
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 08:41:13AM +0200, Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote: packages we know are broken by putting them into the base group. Perhaps fcron is a fine choice. Bug report for reference: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681 It surely would be great for fcron to replace dcron, since being lightweight in size or footprint fcron is not much different from dcron (that is, if cut off the HTML manuals). Plus that fcron has much richer facility and configurability than dcron as well. One could set whether to mail or not, or use a literal english word to specify a time or date period. And, it has really GOOD manual. -- Li Ian-Xue http://b4283.ath.cx
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
fcron is pretty much the de facto cron of choice for anyone needing a cron without special case needs. A nice general cron program. I do wonder about the bureaucratic processes in place to facillitate such a switch, though.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 10:19 AM, Corey Johns li...@n-co.de wrote: fcron is pretty much the de facto cron of choice for anyone needing a cron without special case needs. A nice general cron program. I do wonder about the bureaucratic processes in place to facillitate such a switch, though. The thing to do is contact the package maintainer and present the idea, and ask what needs to be done to make the change. I for one +1 to the move, I like dcron, but when it takes this long to fix bugs upstream we need to unfortunately consider alternatives.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 10:24:42 -0600 schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com: The thing to do is contact the package maintainer and present the idea, and ask what needs to be done to make the change. I for one +1 to the move, I like dcron, but when it takes this long to fix bugs upstream we need to unfortunately consider alternatives. If you like dcron you will like fcron considerably more. I don't like dcron, because it at least feals somewhat immature and incomplete while fcron is absolutely complete and works perfectly as far as I can tell. All the features and the pros and cons, if there are any, have been mentioned many times here on the list. So I won't repeat them. +1 from me, too, for making fcron the default cron daemon as soon as possible. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am 05.04.2011 09:19, schrieb Thomas S Hatch: I can think of three considerations for a cron daemon: 1 . Minimal - its a cron daemon, it does not need to be complex 2. Active development 3. Anacron functionality As far as I can see this leaves us with fcron, dcron and cronie. Cronie probably has the highest assurance for upstream development because it is backed by redhat. But I think that having a cron daemon as default that has issues executing jobs on time and as they are defined is highly questionable. Before the current maintainer took over dcron, we had that same discussion. Aaron even contacted the fcron maintainer (he posted the reply to arch-general or arch-dev-public, if anyone could find the link in the archives, please post it). The author responded that he considered fcron feature-complete, so didn't develop it anymore. However, he would fix bugs when they are reported, and I think there are no known bugs right now. That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like fcron a lot. As for your conditions: 1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of features. It is by no means minimal though. 2) I commented on that above. 3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard crontab entries and add bootrun to the beginning of the line to repeat missed cronjobs. I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:27:27 +0200
schrieb Thomas Bächler tho...@archlinux.org:
That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most
important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like
fcron a lot.
Are you sure about that? I mean, I didn't need /etc/cron.d, yet. So I
don't know exactly, but somehow I think it has this functionality. But
don't nail me down on it. I can be totally wrong regarding this. And I
bet I am. ;-)
Nevertheless is this feature really a knockout argument? Is this
feature really necessary? Can't things in /etc/cron.d be transferred
into /etc/cron.{hourly,...} or the usual fcrontab?
Btw., people who really need /etc/cron.d for whatever reason can easily
install a different cron daemon. The question is not to putting fcron
into [core] and removing every other cron from the repos. The question
is which cron shall be the default cron.
As for your conditions:
1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of
features. It is by no means minimal though.
2) I commented on that above.
3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard
crontab entries and add bootrun to the beginning of the line to
repeat missed cronjobs.
And it runs those missed jobs reliably as soon as it's started at boot
time.
And I would say that this reliability is much more important
than /etc/cron.d.
I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more.
As far as I know cronie doesn't have anacron features (bootrun) like
fcron has.
Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote:
Am Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:27:27 +0200
schrieb Thomas Bächler tho...@archlinux.org:
That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most
important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like
fcron a lot.
Are you sure about that? I mean, I didn't need /etc/cron.d, yet. So I
don't know exactly, but somehow I think it has this functionality. But
don't nail me down on it. I can be totally wrong regarding this. And I
bet I am. ;-)
Nevertheless is this feature really a knockout argument? Is this
feature really necessary? Can't things in /etc/cron.d be transferred
into /etc/cron.{hourly,...} or the usual fcrontab?
Btw., people who really need /etc/cron.d for whatever reason can easily
install a different cron daemon. The question is not to putting fcron
into [core] and removing every other cron from the repos. The question
is which cron shall be the default cron.
As for your conditions:
1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of
features. It is by no means minimal though.
2) I commented on that above.
3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard
crontab entries and add bootrun to the beginning of the line to
repeat missed cronjobs.
And it runs those missed jobs reliably as soon as it's started at boot
time.
And I would say that this reliability is much more important
than /etc/cron.d.
I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more.
As far as I know cronie doesn't have anacron features (bootrun) like
fcron has.
Heiko
Well, seems I am invested... :)
Ok, I think that cronie is worth advanced investigation...
dcron and fcron are not under active development, cronie is
cronie is small - 0.20MB installed
cronie is developed by Red Hat - it is not going anywhere and we have
a guaranteed upgrade path
As far as I can tell cronie has no deps beyond glibc and pam
cronie has /etc/cron.d support
cronie has configurable anacron support via an anacrontab config file
cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core feature
set, etc are stable
cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate with
SELINUX (I am saving the include SELINUX support in base for a latter
date)
At the outset I think that cronie looks to be the most viable option, but
merits further investigation.
-Thomas S Hatch
-Arch Linux Trusted User
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote:
Am Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:27:27 +0200
schrieb Thomas Bächler tho...@archlinux.org:
That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most
important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like
fcron a lot.
Are you sure about that? I mean, I didn't need /etc/cron.d, yet. So I
don't know exactly, but somehow I think it has this functionality. But
don't nail me down on it. I can be totally wrong regarding this. And I
bet I am. ;-)
Nevertheless is this feature really a knockout argument? Is this
feature really necessary? Can't things in /etc/cron.d be transferred
into /etc/cron.{hourly,...} or the usual fcrontab?
Btw., people who really need /etc/cron.d for whatever reason can easily
install a different cron daemon. The question is not to putting fcron
into [core] and removing every other cron from the repos. The question
is which cron shall be the default cron.
As for your conditions:
1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of
features. It is by no means minimal though.
2) I commented on that above.
3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard
crontab entries and add bootrun to the beginning of the line to
repeat missed cronjobs.
And it runs those missed jobs reliably as soon as it's started at boot
time.
And I would say that this reliability is much more important
than /etc/cron.d.
I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more.
As far as I know cronie doesn't have anacron features (bootrun) like
fcron has.
Heiko
Well, seems I am invested... :)
Ok, I think that cronie is worth advanced investigation...
dcron and fcron are not under active development, cronie is
cronie is small - 0.20MB installed
cronie is developed by Red Hat - it is not going anywhere and we have
a guaranteed upgrade path
As far as I can tell cronie has no deps beyond glibc and pam
cronie has /etc/cron.d support
cronie has configurable anacron support via an anacrontab config file
cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core feature
set, etc are stable
cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate with
SELINUX (I am saving the include SELINUX support in base for a latter
date)
At the outset I think that cronie looks to be the most viable option, but
merits further investigation.
This seems to be a monthly recurring discussion. How about not
providing any default, just put all the different cron(s) in extra?
I think eventually systemd will provide a cron-like service :)
Cheers,
Sander
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 3:43 PM, Sander Jansen s.jan...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de
wrote:
Am Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:27:27 +0200
schrieb Thomas Bächler tho...@archlinux.org:
That said, fcron lacks /etc/cron.d/ functionality which was the most
important argument against it. I personally don't need that and I like
fcron a lot.
Are you sure about that? I mean, I didn't need /etc/cron.d, yet. So I
don't know exactly, but somehow I think it has this functionality. But
don't nail me down on it. I can be totally wrong regarding this. And I
bet I am. ;-)
Nevertheless is this feature really a knockout argument? Is this
feature really necessary? Can't things in /etc/cron.d be transferred
into /etc/cron.{hourly,...} or the usual fcrontab?
Btw., people who really need /etc/cron.d for whatever reason can easily
install a different cron daemon. The question is not to putting fcron
into [core] and removing every other cron from the repos. The question
is which cron shall be the default cron.
As for your conditions:
1) It is very small software, 1.2MB installed, and it has lots of
features. It is by no means minimal though.
2) I commented on that above.
3) dcron has @daily, @hourly and so on. In fcron, you can use standard
crontab entries and add bootrun to the beginning of the line to
repeat missed cronjobs.
And it runs those missed jobs reliably as soon as it's started at boot
time.
And I would say that this reliability is much more important
than /etc/cron.d.
I don't know cronie, so maybe you can elaborate more.
As far as I know cronie doesn't have anacron features (bootrun) like
fcron has.
Heiko
Well, seems I am invested... :)
Ok, I think that cronie is worth advanced investigation...
dcron and fcron are not under active development, cronie is
cronie is small - 0.20MB installed
cronie is developed by Red Hat - it is not going anywhere and we have
a guaranteed upgrade path
As far as I can tell cronie has no deps beyond glibc and pam
cronie has /etc/cron.d support
cronie has configurable anacron support via an anacrontab config file
cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core
feature
set, etc are stable
cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate with
SELINUX (I am saving the include SELINUX support in base for a latter
date)
At the outset I think that cronie looks to be the most viable option, but
merits further investigation.
This seems to be a monthly recurring discussion. How about not
providing any default, just put all the different cron(s) in extra?
I think eventually systemd will provide a cron-like service :)
Cheers,
Sander
Unfortunately this particular issue is not like the good ol' syslog-ng vs
rsyslog debate, this one is about the present default having bugs that
upstream is not fixing.
I have nothing against dcron as a cron daemon, but if upstream bugs are not
being fixed than a move needs to happen.
And yes, someday systemd will change my baby's diapers, but it doesn't today
:) (my understanding though is that the stated position of Arch was no
systemd btw)
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 15:54:00 -0600 schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com: Unfortunately this particular issue is not like the good ol' syslog-ng vs rsyslog debate, this one is about the present default having bugs that upstream is not fixing. No, this issue is worse than the syslog-ng vs. rsyslog debate as it indeed appears almost every month as Sander already said. It's a lot more trivial than syslog-ng vs. rsyslog. And this cron discussion is always the same, always the same people with always the same arguments and most of the people vote for fcron. So there needs to be made a decision by the devs, so that this discussion finally can stop. Maybe there could be a voting period - maybe in the forums - or just on this mailing list or wherever, so that every user can vote for the preferred default cron daemon. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 15:30:26 -0600
schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com:
dcron and fcron are not under active development,
fcron is under active development. It's just feature complete and
therefore not developed anymore, but bugs are still fixed if they
occur. So don't mix it up with a dead project. I guess dcron most
likely can be assumed to be dead.
cronie is
cronie is small - 0.20MB installed
cronie is developed by Red Hat - it is not going anywhere and we have
a guaranteed upgrade path
What does that mean? Look at the size and you can see that it can't be
as feature rich as fcron.
As far as I can tell cronie has no deps beyond glibc and pam
cronie has /etc/cron.d support
cronie has configurable anacron support via an anacrontab config file
But you need a separate anacrontab. So it's the same as having
installed a cron and a separate anacron. With fcron you just need one
cron daemon which has anacron features integrated. This means you don't
need to have a separate anacrontab. So you don't need to decide if a
task needs to be run by cron or by anacron. You just can add every task
into one single crontab resp. fcrontab and just put bootrun at the
beginning of the line as Thomas already explained. This means that this
task is run at the desired time if the system is up and the cron is
running, and if not then this task is automagically run as soon as fcron
is started the next time and that very reliably.
So this is much easier and much more flexible than a separate
cron/anacron solution.
That's why fcron is still the best.
And neither /etc/cron.d support nor the fact that cronie is developed by
Redhat is an argument in my opinion.
/etc/cron.d can easily be moved
to /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} or to fcrontab.
So /etc/cron.d is not needed. So this is not an argument in my opinion.
I guess this transition takes about 5 to 10 minutes maximum if at all.
cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core
feature set, etc are stable
cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate
with SELINUX (I am saving the include SELINUX support in base for a
latter date)
Well, is SELinux really a default? Does SELinux run on Arch at all? Is
this really an argument regarding the decision which cron shall be the
default.
As said before, the question is not having removed every other cron
from the repos. The question is about the default cron.
Most people who are regularly discussing this topic here on the mailing
list tend to fcron for a lot of good reasons.
And the few people who really need /etc/cron.d or SELinux support - I'm
not sure if fcron is not able to run with SELinux - can easily install
another cron daemon.
dcron was just kept as the default, because the formerly dead project
was adopted by an Arch user who said, that he wants do keep developing
it and to fixing the bugs. As already said the most important bug wasn't
fixed in a year. And in the meantime it was nothing heard from this
Arch user anymore. So it can be assumed dead in my opinion.
At the outset I think that cronie looks to be the most viable option,
but merits further investigation.
I definitely still vote for fcron for reason which have been explained
many times here on the list - not only by me.
Alternatively it can be done as it is already done with the boot
manager in AIF that every cron is listed in the package list so that
the user can decide which one to install or AIF brings a separate
dialog which asks the user which cron daemon to install with a small
or a bit more detailed description of the daemons.
Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote:
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 15:30:26 -0600
schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com:
dcron and fcron are not under active development,
fcron is under active development. It's just feature complete and
therefore not developed anymore, but bugs are still fixed if they
occur. So don't mix it up with a dead project. I guess dcron most
likely can be assumed to be dead.
cronie is
cronie is small - 0.20MB installed
cronie is developed by Red Hat - it is not going anywhere and we have
a guaranteed upgrade path
What does that mean? Look at the size and you can see that it can't be
as feature rich as fcron.
As far as I can tell cronie has no deps beyond glibc and pam
cronie has /etc/cron.d support
cronie has configurable anacron support via an anacrontab config file
But you need a separate anacrontab. So it's the same as having
installed a cron and a separate anacron. With fcron you just need one
cron daemon which has anacron features integrated. This means you don't
need to have a separate anacrontab. So you don't need to decide if a
task needs to be run by cron or by anacron. You just can add every task
into one single crontab resp. fcrontab and just put bootrun at the
beginning of the line as Thomas already explained. This means that this
task is run at the desired time if the system is up and the cron is
running, and if not then this task is automagically run as soon as fcron
is started the next time and that very reliably.
So this is much easier and much more flexible than a separate
cron/anacron solution.
That's why fcron is still the best.
And neither /etc/cron.d support nor the fact that cronie is developed by
Redhat is an argument in my opinion.
/etc/cron.d can easily be moved
to /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} or to fcrontab.
So /etc/cron.d is not needed. So this is not an argument in my opinion.
I guess this transition takes about 5 to 10 minutes maximum if at all.
cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core
feature set, etc are stable
cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate
with SELINUX (I am saving the include SELINUX support in base for a
latter date)
Well, is SELinux really a default? Does SELinux run on Arch at all? Is
this really an argument regarding the decision which cron shall be the
default.
As said before, the question is not having removed every other cron
from the repos. The question is about the default cron.
Most people who are regularly discussing this topic here on the mailing
list tend to fcron for a lot of good reasons.
And the few people who really need /etc/cron.d or SELinux support - I'm
not sure if fcron is not able to run with SELinux - can easily install
another cron daemon.
dcron was just kept as the default, because the formerly dead project
was adopted by an Arch user who said, that he wants do keep developing
it and to fixing the bugs. As already said the most important bug wasn't
fixed in a year. And in the meantime it was nothing heard from this
Arch user anymore. So it can be assumed dead in my opinion.
At the outset I think that cronie looks to be the most viable option,
but merits further investigation.
I definitely still vote for fcron for reason which have been explained
many times here on the list - not only by me.
Alternatively it can be done as it is already done with the boot
manager in AIF that every cron is listed in the package list so that
the user can decide which one to install or AIF brings a separate
dialog which asks the user which cron daemon to install with a small
or a bit more detailed description of the daemons.
Heiko
All I said what that cronie merits investigation, and that there are good
reasons to investigate. Also, the size of a package != feature set. The
argument that Red Hat develops it is only a plus in that is ensures ongoing
development of the project of provisions to migrate to something else in the
future, just because Red Hat develops something is not alone a viable reason
to use it over other things, but it is a topic for consideration when making
a decision.
All I want is a good decision to be made and have a crond that is not buggy.
Therefore I think that it is foolish not to present the available options in
an accurate light.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 16:57:58 -0600 schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com: All I want is a good decision to be made and have a crond that is not buggy. Therefore I think that it is foolish not to present the available options in an accurate light. fcron is absolutely not buggy as far as I can tell. I'm using it since years now and it always did what it should do. I tried dcron when it was adopted by this Arch user, but switched back to fcron pretty soon, because dcron was indeed not reliable. cronie is no option for me because of the lack of integrated anacron features. But all those arguments including not having a buggy crond have been discussed many times before by a lot of users, TUs and devs. But then dcron's new developer said that he wanted to fix those bugs and so dcron was kept as the default. This was the only reason as far as I recall. I understand Sven-Hendriks e-mail just as a reminder of this fact and that dcron's upstream still hasn't fixed the issue. I don't think that Sven-Hendrik wanted to start a new discussion about that even if it started again nevertheless. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 5:06 PM, Heiko Baums li...@baums-on-web.de wrote: Am Wed, 6 Apr 2011 16:57:58 -0600 schrieb Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com: All I want is a good decision to be made and have a crond that is not buggy. Therefore I think that it is foolish not to present the available options in an accurate light. fcron is absolutely not buggy as far as I can tell. I'm using it since years now and it always did what it should do. I tried dcron when it was adopted by this Arch user, but switched back to fcron pretty soon, because dcron was indeed not reliable. cronie is no option for me because of the lack of integrated anacron features. But all those arguments including not having a buggy crond have been discussed many times before by a lot of users, TUs and devs. But then dcron's new developer said that he wanted to fix those bugs and so dcron was kept as the default. This was the only reason as far as I recall. I understand Sven-Hendriks e-mail just as a reminder of this fact and that dcron's upstream still hasn't fixed the issue. I don't think that Sven-Hendrik wanted to start a new discussion about that even if it started again nevertheless. Heiko Look, I agree with you, fcron is not buggy, and I did not call fcron buggy. I called dcron buggy. cronie has anacron features and I think is a good option. fcron looks like a good option too, I just think they should both be considered, thats all I am saying.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com wrote: cronie has anacron features and I think is a good option. Unfortunately cronie isn't even in [community] yet. I've been trying to get it there for a while. Also, in what way is another crond + anacron inferior to fcron? --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Kaiting Chen kaitocr...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Thomas S Hatch thatc...@gmail.com wrote: cronie has anacron features and I think is a good option. Unfortunately cronie isn't even in [community] yet. I've been trying to get it there for a while. Also, in what way is another crond + anacron inferior to fcron? --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/ Right, both are viable choices, btw I will be migrating my datacenters away from dcron in the near future and doing a series of tests on cronie and fcron, I will post my findings to the list.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 06/04/11, Thomas S Hatch wrote: | Right, both are viable choices, btw I will be migrating my datacenters away | from dcron in the near future and doing a series of tests on cronie and | fcron, I will post my findings to the list. Here's one reason I stopped using fcron and went to cronie: | 2.2.12. How can I emulate a Vixie cron @reboot entry? | | You should use a line similar to the following one: | | @volatile,first(1) BIG-period /your/command | | This will run /your/command one minute after every reboot. Bizarre. -- Simon Perry (aka Pezz)
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 04/06/2011 04:43 PM, Sander Jansen wrote: This seems to be a monthly recurring discussion. How about not providing any default, just put all the different cron(s) in extra? I think eventually systemd will provide a cron-like service :) Cheers, Sander Oh no, every distro needs a default cron -- matters not what it is called, it is fundamental to many server packages that require some type of cron functionality. It seems that keeping a default cron makes sense. To me, I don't need any of the advanced features, but I do need something to sweep for new addresses, faxes, etc.. From a user standpoint (not that Arch is an entry level distro by any stretch), but nevertheless, the new user working with Arch will be far better served by having a basic cron in place rather than not having one and experiencing dependency questions later in the install and be left scratching his head. Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Otherwise, we are bound to repeat this discussion 12 months from now when fcron or dcron has problems that are not being fixed. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Thu, 7 Apr 2011 13:07:17 +1000 schrieb Simon Perry a...@sanxion.net: On 06/04/11, Thomas S Hatch wrote: | Right, both are viable choices, btw I will be migrating my datacenters away | from dcron in the near future and doing a series of tests on cronie and | fcron, I will post my findings to the list. Here's one reason I stopped using fcron and went to cronie: | 2.2.12. How can I emulate a Vixie cron @reboot entry? | | You should use a line similar to the following one: | | @volatile,first(1) BIG-period /your/command | | This will run /your/command one minute after every reboot. Bizarre. And this doesn't work in dcron, at least not as reliable as the equivalent bootrun of fcron. And that's one point why fcron is much better than dcron. Are you sure that this is working in cronie? If yes, are you sure that this works in cronie as reliable as in fcron? Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:24:45 -0500 schrieb David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com: Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Why is this logical? Is it the developer what makes a software good or is it the features and the stability? If Redhat's cronie has less features than fcron then fcron is the logical choice, of course. Otherwise, we are bound to repeat this discussion 12 months from now when fcron or dcron has problems that are not being fixed. dcron has a lot of issues, while fcron works since years. There's no need to wait again 12 months. This discussion already takes more than a year. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On 07/04/11, Heiko Baums wrote: | And this doesn't work in dcron, at least not as reliable as | the equivalent bootrun of fcron. And that's one point why fcron is | much better than dcron. Are you sure that this is working in cronie? If | yes, are you sure that this works in cronie as reliable as in fcron? It's been a while, but from what I remember bootrun is not equivalent to @reboot. The only way to get @reboot behaviour was using that weird volatile method. @reboot works perfectly in cronie. -- Simon Perry (aka Pezz)
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:24 PM, David C. Rankin drankina...@suddenlinkmail.com wrote: On 04/06/2011 04:43 PM, Sander Jansen wrote: This seems to be a monthly recurring discussion. How about not providing any default, just put all the different cron(s) in extra? I think eventually systemd will provide a cron-like service :) Cheers, Sander Oh no, every distro needs a default cron -- matters not what it is called, it is fundamental to many server packages that require some type of cron functionality. It seems that keeping a default cron makes sense. To me, I don't need any of the advanced features, but I do need something to sweep for new addresses, faxes, etc.. From a user standpoint (not that Arch is an entry level distro by any stretch), but nevertheless, the new user working with Arch will be far better served by having a basic cron in place rather than not having one and experiencing dependency questions later in the install and be left scratching his head. Upstream stability makes sense. If redhat is behind cronie, then that seems like the logical choice. Otherwise, we are bound to repeat this discussion 12 months from now when fcron or dcron has problems that are not being fixed. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Thanks for your input David, I think that it is very clear that we need to consider replacing dcron with either fcron or cronie, and we should evaluate what we want to see in the default cron daemon. I don't think that a debate about is fcron better than cronie is in order, but rather an evaluation of what experience we want to present the everyday Arch user to. There is no question that both cron daemons are viable options, and that a user can change between them if they want. So the question I would pose, what type of cron system should be present on an Arch system by default? I would say that we should consider compatibility with vixie cron syntax - this is and has been the expected syntax for the default cron daemon for a LONG time and avoids hindering Arch Linux adoption. What other things do we think should be presented to Arch users by default? I think that this question will better assist us in making a decision about a cron daemon. I have no doubt that fcron and cronie are capable and feature rich cron daemons, but what gives the Arch users the best experience by default?
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Thu, 7 Apr 2011 00:29:36 +0200 Heiko Baums wrote: cronie extends the original vixie cron package so the syntax, core feature set, etc are stable cronie implements advanced security hooks as well and can integrate with SELINUX (I am saving the include SELINUX support in base for a latter date) Well, is SELinux really a default? Does SELinux run on Arch at all? Is this really an argument regarding the decision which cron shall be the default. Only for the stats, this is shown from the fcron configure: --with-selinux=yes|no Use (or not) SELinux (default: yes). Okay, now only the size and the /etc/cron.d support is on the list. :) See you, Attila
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
I can think of three considerations for a cron daemon: 1 . Minimal - its a cron daemon, it does not need to be complex 2. Active development 3. Anacron functionality As far as I can see this leaves us with fcron, dcron and cronie. Cronie probably has the highest assurance for upstream development because it is backed by redhat. But I think that having a cron daemon as default that has issues executing jobs on time and as they are defined is highly questionable.
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
Am Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:41:13 +0200 schrieb Sven-Hendrik Haase s...@lutzhaase.com: We all know the situation with dcron (it can't keep time properly) and it still is broken. No fix (or any changes for that matter) have gone into its upstream git for over a year now. There have been multiple yeah-I'll-take-a-looks from various people as well as its upstream maintainer and no work was done. I certainly don't want to offend anybody but I think it is time another crond was made quasi default by swapping it for dcron in base group. I know that users can do that themselves but the we shouldn't suggest packages we know are broken by putting them into the base group. Perhaps fcron is a fine choice. Bug report for reference: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681 I always voted for fcron in these discussions. It has cron and anacron features combined and can be used for every use case as far as I know. And it just works. In my opinion fcron is the best choice and making it the default cron daemon is long overdue. Heiko
Re: [arch-general] Change Arch's default crond
On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:41:13 +0200 Sven-Hendrik Haase s...@lutzhaase.com wrote: We all know the situation with dcron (it can't keep time properly) and it still is broken. No fix (or any changes for that matter) have gone into its upstream git for over a year now. There have been multiple yeah-I'll-take-a-looks from various people as well as its upstream maintainer and no work was done. I certainly don't want to offend anybody but I think it is time another crond was made quasi default by swapping it for dcron in base group. I know that users can do that themselves but the we shouldn't suggest packages we know are broken by putting them into the base group. Perhaps fcron is a fine choice. Bug report for reference: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/18681 -- Sven-Hendrik As I maintain fcron in [community]: I won't mind if it's decided to replace dcron as default. If I remember correctly, this is the third thread about a replacement because of this bug, so I'd welcome a clear Yes, we decide to replace it with X. or a No, now stop to annoy us.. Still I'm TU not Dev so that's a plain beg. However just as a notice: it's not a plain package replacement, as one other package has to be modified for this, if not there are currently some problems with fcron's build process if that's not done. fcron needs the user and group 'cron' which are later used at the system to exist already at build time, to create these in the chroots is currently not possible to do with devtools, because of missing PAM Authorization within the chroots. Long story short: If it's moved to [core] don't forget to provide a cron user and a cron group[1] with the filesystem package. Regards, Thorsten [1]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:UID_/_GID_Database -- Jabber: atsut...@freethoughts.de Blog: http://atsutane.freethoughts.de/ Key: 295AFBF4 FP: 39F8 80E5 0E49 A4D1 1341 E8F9 39E4 F17F 295A FBF4 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
