Dale Ghent wrote: > On Dec 24, 2007, at 4:44 PM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >> >> Solaris has an /etc/cron.d directory, but the files in it aren't crontab >> files, and the man pages don't make any suggestion of anything except >> user-specific cron files (no system cron file, either, that I can >> find). So why the heck is the directory called /etc/cron.d? That's >> just mean; deliberately misleading people! And misusing the naming >> convention. > > You're looking for /var/spool/cron for the per-user cron and at job > storage. This location predates Linux and the existence of vixie cron. > There isn't a concept as a system-wide crontab in particular, and I'd > guess the closest approximation of that would be to put the job under > root's account.
That's the closest I was able to figure out, anyway. Which really complicates system cron entries that don't want to run as root. > > There might be some history context you're missing though. Linux > distros have historically packaged Vixie cron or a derivative of it. > Solaris's cron is, well, Solaris's Cron. Two different origins, two > different histories, and two different ways of doing things. I even know the name "Vixie Cron", yes. > I bet that since you're coming from a Linux background, you're coming > to Solaris with a understanding that what's in Linux is what's been > Universally True since the dawn of *NIX. However, this isn't as Linux > distros as we know them today have been around for only ~15 years. > SunOS goes back father than this. For those of us who have used > SunOS/Solaris since before Linux, we see the Linux as the perversion > here... so who is right or wrong is a matter of perspective depending > on who you ask. You'd lose. My first personal contact with Unix was around 1983, at DEC-Marlboro, and that was Ultrix-32 on a Vax (I'd been developing software professionally for 14 years before that). Then I had contact with SunOS at Network Systems in the 1986 timeframe (in fact I was de-facto admin for one server and two workstations hanging off it). Then I was news admin at mtn.org and shortly after at gofast.net, on SunOS/Solaris boxes (I forget exactly where we were on that line) in the early 90s. My first Linux box ran kernel 0.99pl13, I believe, but that was after I'd had quite a lot of time on Sun and other Unixes. No, the trouble is that I haven't touched Solaris *since* then, and it's changed a lot from what I dimly remember, and in directions different from what Linux was doing. And I develop on and for Linux in my day job at the moment, so that's what keeps getting reinforced. >> And how much trouble is it to replace the archaic cron system with >> something with decent features? I suppose that would mess up all the >> package installations? > > Well, here we are in a Open Source world. Never assume never and > participation is where the rubber meets the road in the purest sense > of the definition. I'm sure you can find people other than yourself > who have their own bone to pick with Solaris's cron facility. If you > truly want to be here in a way that's more than being a Tourist, feel > free to organize and front your ideas and ask others to join you in > adding features to cron. Describe a design, find someone (or yourself) > to provide code diffs and manage the review process for it. If you > want to just be a Tourist here, that's perfectly fine too. Just keep > the vitriol to an absolute minimum and remember that you brought > yourself to try Solaris in the first place. That's all... First, if I'm heading that direction, I should look at what the other distros are packaging; they may very well have more the feel I'm looking for. Also, one thing I'm trying to communicate is that, to an awful lot of people coming to Solaris today, it looks and feels archaic. Capabilities I'm used to finding are missing from all sorts of tools, in particular; that looks like lagging behind the rest of the world. "Different" is a thing that happens, and if one is investigating a *different* system, it's expected to some extent. "Better" is a good thing -- ZFS is better for what I want than the alternatives I know of, and I'm putting up with a lot of pain on account of wanting that, in addition to learning ZFS itself from scratch. The svc administration system, although I don't understand it thoroughly yet, shows definite signs of being significantly *better* than what any Linux distro I've worked with has in that area. The in-kernel CIFS system has the possibility of being definitely *better* than SAMBA, though I haven't worked with it yet (I've got a samba-based solution "in production" right now at home). Zones are probably a very useful and powerful solution, but I think to a problem I don't have. It's the cases where facilities / capabilities / options are simply *missing*, and sometimes I can't find the alternatives easily, that get annoying. Also the severe lagging in hardware support. Sorry for sharing :-). -- David Dyer-Bennet, [EMAIL PROTECTED]; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
