Automating Processes with the cron Scheduler Daemon

Now that you’ve seen how to manipulate processes directly, you’re ready to examine how processes can be executed automatically without any intervention on your part. Automating tasks with the scheduler allows FreeBSD to perform daily security audits and system status updates, regularly update its runtime databases, flush log files, and perform as many other tasks as an administrator can think of. Some operating systems attach schedulers to individual applications (such as the Software Update tool in Mac OS X), but the advantage of FreeBSD and other UNIX-like systems is that the scheduler is an independent daemon that can run any command-line program or set of programs on any periodic schedule ...

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