hcron May Be Right for You If ...

• crontab's table format makes it difficult to do what you want
• you would like to easily label and organize your cron type jobs
• you manage a network of computers and your users' crontab files keep getting clobbered during re/installs
• you want an easy way to edit, organize, and back up, and version control (e.g., with git) your cron type jobs (and so do your other 500 coworkers)

See the article for more.

hcron in Use

At Environment Canada, hcron is in 24/7 operational use managing over 1500 event definitions with more than 36000 events scheduled each day.

Quick Comparison

crontab entry:

# hello_dolly
0 11,21 * 2-12/2 * ssh exechost.abc.xyz 'echo "hello dolly" > /tmp/hello_dolly'; mail -s done Mister.Big@mailhost.abc.xyz

hcron event file (called hello_dolly):

as_user=
host=exechost.abc.xyz
command=echo "hello dolly" > /tmp/hello_dolly
notify_email=Mister.Big@mailhost.abc.xyz
notify_message=done
when_month=2-12/2
when_day=*
when_hour=11,21
when_minute=0
when_dow=2

For this single case, the hcron example clearly identifies each attribute and value. But, the real advantages show up when there are many entries that benefit from hierarchical organization and naming.

Feedback

Your feedback is welcome (see discussion group at http://groups.google.com/group/hcron-users). As well, if you have put hcron to work in an interesting way, we would be glad to hear from you.

This software was developed at, and made available courtesy of, the High Performance Computing Support (HPCS) branch of Environment Canada.