FreeBSD Man Pages

periodic.conf(5)

NAME

     periodic.conf -- periodic job configuration information

DESCRIPTION

     The file periodic.conf contains a description of how daily, weekly and
     monthly system maintenance jobs should run.  It resides in the
     /etc/defaults directory and parts may be overridden by a file of the same
     name in /etc, which itself may be overridden by the
     /etc/periodic.conf.local file.

     periodic.conf is actually sourced as a shell script from each of the
     periodic scripts and is intended to simply provide default configuration
     variables.

     The following variables are used by periodic(8) itself:

	 local_periodic
	     (str) List of directories to search for periodic scripts.	This
	     list is always prefixed with /etc/periodic, and is only used when
	     an argument to periodic(8) is not an absolute directory name.

	 dir_output
	     (path or list) What to do with the output of the scripts executed
	     from the directory dir.  If this variable is set to an absolute
	     path name, output is logged to that file, otherwise it is taken
	     as one or more space separated email addresses and mailed to
	     those users.  If this variable is not set or is empty, output is
	     sent to standard output.

	     For an unattended machine, suitable values for daily_output,
	     weekly_output, and monthly_output might be
	     ``/var/log/daily.log'', ``/var/log/weekly.log'', and
	     ``/var/log/monthly.log'' respectively, as newsyslog(8) will
	     rotate these files (if they exists) at the appropriate times.

	 dir_show_success

	 dir_show_info

	 dir_show_badconfig
	     (bool) These variables control whether periodic(8) will mask the
	     output of the executed scripts based on their return code (where
	     dir is the base directory name in which each script resides).  If
	     the return code of a script is `0' and dir_show_success is set to
	     ``NO'', periodic(8) will mask the script's output.  If the return
	     code of a script is `1' and dir_show_info is set to ``NO'',
	     periodic(8) will mask the script's output.  If the return code of
	     a script is `2' and dir_show_badconfig is set to ``NO'',
	     periodic(8) will mask the script's output.  If these variables
	     are set to neither ``YES'' nor ``NO'', they default to ``YES'',
	     ``YES'' and ``NO'' respectively.

	     Refer to the periodic(8) man page for how script return codes are
	     interpreted.

     The following variables are used by the standard scripts that reside in
     /etc/periodic/daily:

	 daily_clean_disks_days
	     (num) When daily_clean_disks_enable is set to ``YES'', this must
	     also be set to the number of days old that a file's access and
	     modification times must be before it's deleted.

	 daily_clean_disks_verbose
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the removed files to be
	     reported in your daily output.

	 daily_clean_tmps_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to clear temporary directories
	     daily.

	 daily_clean_tmps_dirs
	     (str) Set to the list of directories to clear if
	     daily_clean_tmps_enable is set to ``YES''.

	 daily_clean_tmps_days
	     (num) When daily_clean_tmps_enable is set, this must also be set
	     to the number of days old that a file's access and modification
	     times must be before it's deleted.

	 daily_clean_tmps_ignore
	     (str) Set to the list of files that should not be deleted when
	     daily_clean_tmps_enable is set to ``YES''.  Wild card characters
	     are permitted.

	 daily_clean_tmps_verbose
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the removed files to be
	     reported in your daily output.

	 daily_clean_preserve_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you wish to remove old files from
	     /var/preserve.

	 daily_clean_preserve_days
	     (num) Set to the number of days that files must not have been
	     modified before they are deleted.

	 daily_clean_preserve_verbose
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the removed files to be
	     reported in your daily output.

	 daily_clean_msgs_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you wish old system messages to be
	     purged.

	 daily_clean_msgs_days
	     (num) Set to the number of days that files must not have been
	     modified before they are deleted.	If this variable is left
	     blank, the msgs(1) default is used.

	 daily_clean_rwho_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you wish old files in /var/who to be
	     purged.

	 daily_clean_rwho_days
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to run sendmail -bH to automatically purge
	     stale entries from sendmail(8)'s host status cache.  Files will
	     be deleted using the same criteria as sendmail(8) would normally
	     use when determining whether to believe the cached information,
	     as configured in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf.

	 daily_backup_passwd_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the /etc/master.passwd and
	     /etc/group files backed up and reported on.  Reporting consists
	     of checking both files for modifications and running chkgrp(8) on
	     the group file.

	 daily_backup_aliases_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the /etc/mail/aliases file
	     backed up and modifications to be displayed in your daily output.

	 daily_backup_distfile_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the /etc/Distfile file backed
	     up and modifications to be displayed in your daily output.

	 daily_calendar_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run calendar -a daily.

	 daily_accounting_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to rotate your daily accounting
	     files.  No rotations are necessary unless accounting_enable is
	     enabled in rc.conf(5).

	 daily_accounting_compress
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want your daily accounting files to
	     be compressed using gzip(1).

	 daily_accounting_save
	     (num) When daily_accounting_enable is set, this may also be set
	     to the number of daily accounting files that are to be saved.
	     The default is ``3''.

	 daily_accounting_flags
	     (str) Set to the arguments to pass to the sa(8) utility (in addi-
	     tion to -s) when daily_accounting_enable is set to ``YES''.  The
	     default is -q.

	 daily_distfile_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run rdist(1) daily.  The
	     /etc/Distfile file must also exist.

	 daily_news_expire_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run /etc/news.expire.

	 daily_status_disks_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run df(1) (with the argu-
	     ments supplied in daily_status_disks_df_flags) and dump -W.

	 daily_status_disks_df_flags
	     (str) Set to the arguments for the df(1) utility when
	     daily_status_disks_enable is set to ``YES''.

	 daily_status_network_enable
	     if rwhod_enable is set to ``YES'' in /etc/rc.conf).

	 daily_status_mailq_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run mailq(1).

	 daily_status_mailq_shorten
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to shorten the mailq(1) output
	     when daily_status_mailq_enable is set to ``YES''.

	 daily_status_include_submit_mailq
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you also want to run mailq(1) on the
	     submit mail queue when daily_status_mailq_enable is set to
	     ``YES''.  This may not work with MTAs other than sendmail(8).

	 daily_status_security_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run the security check.  The
	     security check is another set of periodic(8) scripts.  The system
	     defaults are in /etc/periodic/security.  Local scripts should be
	     placed in /usr/local/etc/periodic/security.  See the periodic(8)
	     manual page for more information.

	 daily_status_security_inline
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want the security check output
	     inline.  The default is to either mail or log the output accord-
	     ing to the value of daily_status_security_output.

	 daily_status_security_output
	     (str) Where to send the output of the security check if
	     daily_status_security_inline is set to ``NO''.  This variable
	     behaves in the same way as the *_output variables above, namely
	     it can be set either to one or more email addresses or to an
	     absolute file name.

	 daily_status_security_chksetuid_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to compare the modes and modification times
	     of setuid executables with the previous day's values.

	 daily_status_security_chkmounts_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to check for changes mounted file systems
	     to the previous day's values.

	 daily_status_security_noamd
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to ignore amd(8) mounts when
	     comparing against yesterday's file system mounts in the
	     daily_status_security_chkmounts_enable check.

	 daily_status_security_chkuid0_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to check /etc/master.passwd for accounts
	     with uid 0.

	 daily_status_security_passwdless_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to check /etc/master.passwd for accounts
	     with empty passwords.

	 daily_status_security_ipfwdenied_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to show log entries for packets denied by
	     ipfw(8) since yesterday's check.

	 daily_status_security_ipfwlimit_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to display ipfw(8) rules that have reached
	     their verbosity limit.

	 daily_status_security_ip6fwdenied_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to show log entries for packets denied by
	     ip6fw(8) since yesterday's check.

	 daily_status_security_ip6fwlimit_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to display ip6fw(8) rules that have reached
	     their verbosity limit.

	 daily_status_security_kernelmsg_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to show new dmesg(8) entries since yester-
	     day's check.

	 daily_status_security_loginfail_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to display failed logins from
	     /var/log/messages in the previous day.

	 daily_status_security_tcpwrap_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' to display connections denied by tcpwrap-
	     pers (see hosts_access(5)) from /var/log/messages during the pre-
	     vious day.

	 daily_status_mail_rejects_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to summarise mail rejections
	     logged to /var/log/maillog for the previous day.

	 daily_status_mail_rejects_logs
	     (num) Set to the number of maillog files that should be checked
	     for yesterday's mail rejects.

	 daily_status_named_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to summarise denied zone trans-
	     fers (AXFR and IXFR) for the previous day.

	 daily_status_named_usedns
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to enable reverse DNS lookups.

	 daily_queuerun_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to manually run the mail queue
	     at least once a day.

	 daily_submit_queuerun
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you also want to manually run the submit
	     mail queue at least once a day when daily_queuerun_enable is set
	     to ``YES''.

	 daily_local
	     (str) Set to a list of extra scripts that should be run after all
	     other daily scripts.  All scripts must be absolute path names.

     The following variables are used by the standard scripts that reside in
     /etc/periodic/weekly:

	 weekly_clean_kvmdb_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to purge old /var/db/kvm_*.db
	     reported in your weekly output.

	 weekly_locate_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run
	     /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb.  This script is run using nice -5
	     as user nobody, and generates the table used by the locate(1)
	     command.

	 weekly_whatis_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run
	     /usr/libexec/makewhatis.local.  This script regenerates the data-
	     base used by the apropos(1) command.

	 weekly_catman_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to run
	     /usr/libexec/catman.local.  This script processes all out of date
	     man pages, speeding up the man(1) command at the expense of disk
	     space.

	 weekly_noid_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to locate orphaned files on the
	     system.  An orphaned file is one with an invalid owner or group.

	 weekly_noid_dirs
	     (str) A list of directories under which orphaned files are
	     searched for.  This would usually be set to /.

	 weekly_status_pkg_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to use pkg_version(1) to list
	     installed packages which are out of date.

	 pkg_version
	     (string) When weekly_status_pkg_enable is set to ``YES'', this
	     variable specifies the program that is used to determine the out
	     of date packages.	If unset, the pkg_version(1) program is used.
	     As an example, this variable might be set to ``portversion'' if
	     the portupgrade port has been installed.

	 pkg_version_index
	     (string) This variable specifies the INDEX file from /usr/ports
	     that should be used by pkg_version(1).  Because the dependency
	     tree may be substantially different between versions of FreeBSD,
	     there may be more than one INDEX file in /usr/ports.

	     Note, if the pkg_version variable is set to ``portversion'', it
	     will also be necessary to arrange that the correct INDEX file is
	     specified using environment variables and that pkg_version_index
	     is cleared in /etc/periodic.conf (``pkg_version_index='').

	 weekly_local
	     (str) Set to a list of extra scripts that should be run after all
	     other weekly scripts.  All scripts must be absolute path names.

     The following variables are used by the standard scripts that reside in
     /etc/periodic/monthly:

	 monthly_accounting_enable
	     (bool) Set to ``YES'' if you want to do login accounting using
				  contains all default variables and values.

     /etc/periodic.conf 	  The usual system specific variable override
				  file.

     /etc/periodic.conf.local	  An additional override file, useful when
				  /etc/periodic.conf is shared or distributed.

SEE ALSO

     apropos(1), calendar(1), df(1), gzip(1), locate(1), man(1), msgs(1),
     netstat(1), nice(1), pkg_version(1), rdist(1), rc.conf(5), ac(8),
     chkgrp(8), dump(8), newsyslog(8), periodic(8), sendmail(8)

HISTORY

     The periodic.conf file appeared in FreeBSD 4.1.

AUTHORS

     Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>.

FreeBSD 5.4		       November 24, 2004		   FreeBSD 5.4

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