<!--
Fcron documentation
-Copyright 2000-2004 Thibault Godouet <fcron@free.fr>
+Copyright 2000-2006 Thibault Godouet <fcron@free.fr>
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software
A copy of the license is included in gfdl.sgml.
-->
-<!-- $Id: changes.sgml,v 1.42 2005-09-09 21:03:39 thib Exp $ -->
+<!-- $Id: changes.sgml,v 1.43 2006-01-11 01:02:56 thib Exp $ -->
<sect1 id="changes">
<title>Changes</title>
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <title>From version 3.0.0 to 3.0.1</title>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Better handling of the pipes in job.c: this should remove some problems encountered on BSD systems.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Bug fix: set the FDs correctly for select(). Should fix the problem encountered on BSD systems.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>fcrontab: access user's directory with user's rights (necessary if user/group fcron has not the right to read the directory).</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>improvement in check_system_crontabs: more comments, added some help messages, added command line options, cleaner, safer code.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Improved English documentation: clarified some previously-unclear points.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Added French translation of the manual pages (thanks go to Alain Portal)</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 2.9.7 to 3.0.0</title>
<listitem>
<para>HP-UX support (needs more tests).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : restore umask even if fcron runs
+ <para>bug fix: restore umask even if fcron runs
unprivileged.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Merged debian/ dir for debian package.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Mail reports : put the same username in the To: field than the
+ <para>Mail reports: put the same username in the To: field than the
one we give as recipient to the MTA. mailto can now also be a
fully qualified email address.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>changed a log message : a job which has ended without error is
+ <para>changed a log message: a job which has ended without error is
reported has "completed" (which is more appropriated than
"terminated").
</para>
crash.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Fixed a small bug : scripts were supposing perl was in
+ <para>Fixed a small bug: scripts were supposing perl was in
/usr/bin.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 2.9.3 to 2.9.4</title>
<listitem>
- <para>Merged support for SE Linux (patch from Russell Coker : thanks
- !)</para>
+ <para>Merged support for SE Linux (patch from Russell Coker: thanks!)
+ </para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Work on the documentation (fixed spelling mistakes, tried to
make things clearer in fcrontab.5) (thanks Bill Wohler for your
- help !)</para>
+ help!)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Changed the subject line of mail reports : it now contains the
+ <para>Changed the subject line of mail reports: it now contains the
subject line, and is very similar to vixie cron's one.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Added a sum-up at the end of ./configure.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : "makewhatis" bug is fixed -- at last !</para>
+ <para>bug fix: "makewhatis" bug is fixed -- at last!</para>
<para>In fact, the problems encountered were due to an abusively
ignored signal SIGPIPE.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : possible crash of fcron when trying to save a file
+ <para>bug fix: possible crash of fcron when trying to save a file
if there was no space left on device.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : we don't consider '-' and '_' as word delimiters for
+ <para>bug fix: we don't consider '-' and '_' as word delimiters for
a username before the command anymore, since many programs have
one of these characters in their name.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : option first was broken in fcron 2.9.3.</para>
+ <para>bug fix: option first was broken in fcron 2.9.3.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>fixed a little typo in an error message
(could->couldn't)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : do not ignore the last line of a fcrontab if there
+ <para>bug fix: do not ignore the last line of a fcrontab if there
is no \n before the end of file.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
from another directory.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Perf improvement : use buffer for i/o in run_job().</para>
+ <para>Perf improvement: use buffer for i/o in run_job().</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 2.9.2 to 2.9.3</title>
<listitem>
- <para>security issue : fcron used not to check the fcrontabs
+ <para>security issue: fcron used not to check the fcrontabs
installed by root for a standard user. This could make an
inattentive superuser install a user job runas(root)
involontary.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Perf improvement : we now use buffers to write something to
+ <para>Perf improvement: we now use buffers to write something to
disk (became necessary due to the use of O_SYNC).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
particular, you can now use address like user@host.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : in 2.9.2, fcrontab and fcron did not set correctly
+ <para>bug fix: in 2.9.2, fcrontab and fcron did not set correctly
some file modes.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug (introduced in 2.9.1) : when a job stops with an non-zero
+ <para>bug (introduced in 2.9.1): when a job stops with an non-zero
exit status or because it has been signaled, send a mail to its
owner to inform him (in 2.9.1 and 2.9.2, the mail was sent, but
contained nothing).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>code clean : use the same scheme for all struct types, removed
+ <para>code clean: use the same scheme for all struct types, removed
some code redundancy (save to disk management).</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
required by some programs (for instance, perl).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : using DESTDIR with make did not work with the
+ <para>bug fix: using DESTDIR with make did not work with the
doc.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Code clean : changed macros to make parameters clearly
+ <para>Code clean: changed macros to make parameters clearly
different from vars.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>added configure's option --with-boot-install .</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Minor change in the PAM code of fcron : may work better on
+ <para>Minor change in the PAM code of fcron: may work better on
some systems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>configure script now uses getpwnam() and getgrnam() instead of
- reading directly /etc/passwd and /etc/group : this makes easier
+ reading directly /etc/passwd and /etc/group: this makes easier
the use of NIS, LDAP, etc.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Bug fix : using some "cmd > /dev/stderr" (or stdout) in a
+ <para>Bug fix: using some "cmd > /dev/stderr" (or stdout) in a
script used to make fcron send a bogus output mail. (rewrite of
the code managing the output of jobs)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Bug fix : typo error prevented fcrontab to be compiled on some
+ <para>Bug fix: typo error prevented fcrontab to be compiled on some
systems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Minor bug fix about stdout option.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Minor bug fix : giving fcrontab's option -c a relative path
+ <para>Minor bug fix: giving fcrontab's option -c a relative path
now works correctly.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 2.1.0 to 2.9.0</title>
<listitem>
- <para>Added some new options to fcron : -y, -o, -l ; and some
- fcrontab options : stdout and volatile. All these permit to make
+ <para>Added some new options to fcron: -y, -o, -l; and some
+ fcrontab options: stdout and volatile. All these permit to make
fcron run in foreground, execute all the pending jobs (mainly
%-jobs), and return. May be used, for instance, in a ppp-up
script with a dialup connection to update a software
regularly.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Added fcrondyn : this software allows users to dialog
+ <para>Added fcrondyn: this software allows users to dialog
dyn-amically with a running fcron daemon. Currently, it can list
jobs of the user running it (or all jobs for root). In the near
future, it should be able to run a job, change its next time and
<para>All the documentation has been ported to SGML DocBook.</para>
<para>It results on a much better HTML version, which I recommand
you use. It is installed by default in fcron documentation
- directory (for instance, on my system :
+ directory (for instance, on my system:
<filename>/usr/share/doc/fcron-X.X.X/</filename>).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
being run as soon as possible.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>added some more checks in fileconf.c : allow user to use
- hours, days, hourly, daily, etc options only with %-lines : it is
+ <para>added some more checks in fileconf.c: allow user to use
+ hours, days, hourly, daily, etc options only with %-lines: it is
ignored if set for a &-line, which is quite confusing for users
who may type, for instance "&hourly" instead of
"%hourly".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : you can now use arguments in the var EDITOR and
+ <para>bug fixed: you can now use arguments in the var EDITOR and
VISUAL.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : fcron used to call sometimes a sleep(-1), which
+ <para>bug fixed: fcron used to call sometimes a sleep(-1), which
causes a freeze (no crash, but a very very long sleep :) ) under
system using LIBC5, and maybe on some non-linux systems. It was
not causing any problem under GLIBC2. Thanks go to Nick
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 2.0.0 to 2.1.0</title>
<listitem>
- <para>PAM support for fcron and fcrontab (need testing ! - help
+ <para>PAM support for fcron and fcrontab (need testing! - help
would be appreciated).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
not be run because of a queue full.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>Fcron now compiles on AIX (thank you, John A. Parker !), and a
+ <para>Fcron now compiles on AIX (thank you, John A. Parker!), and a
few AIX-only bugs have been fixed, but it may remain some
- problems to correct. Please try, and tell me !</para>
+ problems to correct. Please try, and tell me!</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>We now use constants ROOTUID and ROOTGID instead of some
<para>code cleaning.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : setting lavg to (0,0,0) used to make the line be
+ <para>bug fixed: setting lavg to (0,0,0) used to make the line be
added in the lavg queue instead of the serial queue (but the
lavgs were ignored anyway).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : fcrontab's "-z" option was not ignoring previous
+ <para>bug fixed: fcrontab's "-z" option was not ignoring previous
user's fcrontab version.</para> </listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : on systems using putenv(), the var HOME, USER and
+ <para>bug fixed: on systems using putenv(), the var HOME, USER and
SHELL wasn't correctly assigned. On system supporting setenv()
(which is the default), the problem did not occur. (thanks go to
Evan A. Zacks).</para>
syslog.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>fcron behavior on serial and lavg queues overflow has changed
- : in previous versions, it used to run a job to make room to put
+ <para>fcron behavior on serial and lavg queues overflow has changed:
+ in previous versions, it used to run a job to make room to put
a new one. As it may conduct to a overwhelming of system
resources, the new job is now refused (and not run). An error
message is also logged through syslog.</para>
<para>added a FAQ.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : a midmonthly job executed after the 15th of the
+ <para>bug fixed: a midmonthly job executed after the 15th of the
month used to cause an endless loop. Thanks go to Guy Geens
- (thanks a lot !).</para>
+ (thanks a lot!).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : inserting a job in serial queue or running a job
+ <para>bug fixed: inserting a job in serial queue or running a job
not finished at startup was broken, unless the job was
strict(no).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : some 1.1.1 changes used to make fcron impossible
+ <para>bug fixed: some 1.1.1 changes used to make fcron impossible
to compile without sendmail (./configure's option
"--with-sendmail=no").</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed in sysV boot script : we know specify explicitly the
+ <para>bug fixed in sysV boot script: we know specify explicitly the
path to fcron.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : unresolved error used to occur on some system not
+ <para>bug fixed: unresolved error used to occur on some system not
defining getopt_long().</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 1.1.0 to 1.1.1</title>
<listitem>
- <para>security fix : sym link attack against fcrontab. Any user
+ <para>security fix: sym link attack against fcrontab. Any user
allowed to use fcrontab used to be able to remove any fcrontab,
and potentially to truncate any file to zero-length (under
certain conditions, anyway).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>fcron and fcrontab now have a configuration file : fcron.conf.
+ <para>fcron and fcrontab now have a configuration file: fcron.conf.
It contains the default paths (spool dir, etc) and programs to
use (editor, shell, etc). Thanks to that file, several fcron
processes can run simultaneously if they have a different config
<para>added fcron's option "-n" to create a new spool dir.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>command line syntax of fcrontab has changed : you can know use
+ <para>command line syntax of fcrontab has changed: you can know use
"user" (after the file name if any) instead of "-u user". It
should make fcrontab a little more intuitive.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>It is now possible to put a user name between the time/date
fields and the shell command of a fcrontab line (for Vixie cron
- format compatibility) : it is equivalent to runas(user).</para>
+ format compatibility): it is equivalent to runas(user).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>support of Solaris (and SysV).</para>
$prefix/{man|doc}) ($prefix is generally "/usr").</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : fcron used not to add a serial_sev line to
+ <para>bug corrected: fcron used not to add a serial_sev line to
serial/lavg queue if this line was running, saying "already in
serial queue".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : a "all" in fcron.allow with no fcron.deny file
+ <para>bug corrected: a "all" in fcron.allow with no fcron.deny file
was not considered as an allow rule.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 1.0.3 to 1.1.0</title>
<listitem>
- <para>The binary format of the binary fcrontabs has changed : there
+ <para>The binary format of the binary fcrontabs has changed: there
is now no more need to reinstall the fcrontabs when upgrading
fcron (but you need to convert your fcrontabs to the new format
once), and this format should allow extensions without losing any
secure).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>we now remove unwanted fcrontabs before loading them in memory
- : well, it seems to be more logical like that :)) .</para>
+ <para>we now remove unwanted fcrontabs before loading them in memory:
+ well, it seems to be more logical like that :)) .</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : using options first with a &-line may have led to
+ <para>bug fix: using options first with a &-line may have led to
some problems during the first read by fcron (mail send
erroneously if noticenotrun was used, bad set of the first
execution's time and date or immediate execution if bootrun was
- set : in fact, the line was not recognized as a new line).</para>
+ set: in fact, the line was not recognized as a new line).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : fcron used not to be able to be compiled from any
+ <para>bug fix: fcron used not to be able to be compiled from any
directory because of an absent -I. line option for the compiler
(the config.h file was not found).</para>
</listitem>
(not only from the source dir).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fix : fcron now sets umask to the value it got at start
+ <para>bug fix: fcron now sets umask to the value it got at start
before running a job.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : a bug used to make the "truncated" system not
+ <para>bug corrected: a bug used to make the "truncated" system not
to work correctly, so a too long log message used to make fcron
crash.</para>
</listitem>
<para>a boolean value can now also be set by "yes" and "no".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : bootrun option works again.</para>
+ <para>bug corrected: bootrun option works again.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : shell variable containing underscore (_) used
+ <para>bug corrected: shell variable containing underscore (_) used
to be rejected.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : installation script used not to check if user
+ <para>bug corrected: installation script used not to check if user
fcron was in group fcron, in which case fcrontab doesn't work
correctly (it cannot, in that case, read the fcrontabs for
non-privileged users).</para>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 1.0.0 to 1.0.1</title>
<listitem>
- <para>security fix : a user used to be able to read a file owned by
+ <para>security fix: a user used to be able to read a file owned by
root if root runs a "fcrontab -u user -e".</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>installation scripts now support better FreeBSD and sh.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : configure's options prefix and
+ <para>bug corrected: configure's options prefix and
without-sendmail used not to work.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : installing an fcrontab by "fcrontab file"
+ <para>bug corrected: installing an fcrontab by "fcrontab file"
wasn't working correctly with a relative path (a path not
beginning by a "/").</para>
</listitem>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 0.9.4 to 0.9.5</title>
<listitem>
- <para>security fix : the jobs of a fcrontab reinstalled by root used
+ <para>security fix: the jobs of a fcrontab reinstalled by root used
to be run as root (until the next action of the owner on the
fcrontab).</para>
</listitem>
./configure script for a better support of exotic systems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected in make install (script user-group) : the script
+ <para>bug corrected in make install (script user-group): the script
used not to handle correctly the absence of both useradd and
adduser commands. This script now checks and tries to add a
group fcron if necessary.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 0.9.3 to 0.9.4</title>
<listitem>
- <para>security improvement : after the (horrible) root exploit found
+ <para>security improvement: after the (horrible) root exploit found
in version 0.9.3, I decided to improve fcron/fcrontab's security.
I've included some strong (I hope :)) ) tests in fcron to ensure
that only root can run commands as superuser and use option
runas. Even an corrupted fcrontab should not be able to get
- root's privileges. Pretty reassuring, isn't it ?</para>
+ root's privileges. Pretty reassuring, isn't it?</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>runfreq(1) lines have been replaced and extended by a new kind
- of line : the lines beginning by a "%". It's now possible to tell
+ of line: the lines beginning by a "%". It's now possible to tell
fcron to run a command once an hour, a week, etc, but only at
- some specified moments. For instance : '%weekly * 4-7 echo "foo"'
+ some specified moments. For instance: '%weekly * 4-7 echo "foo"'
will run the command 'echo "foo"' once a week between 4 and 7 in
the morning. (see "man 5 fcrontab" for more details).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>installation process improved : user is now consulted before
+ <para>installation process improved: user is now consulted before
anything is done about installation in boot scripts, etc. The
- default username of fcron is now ... fcron ! (this is more secure
+ default username of fcron is now ... fcron! (this is more secure
than daemon, which can be used by other programs). </para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
as crontab under a "su".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : a tmp file was not removed after a "fcron
+ <para>bug fixed: a tmp file was not removed after a "fcron
-z"</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed in fcrontab : an expression of the form "start-stop"
+ <para>bug fixed in fcrontab: an expression of the form "start-stop"
with start > stop used to be incorrectly managed by fcron.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : when fcron and fcrontab were installed under a
+ <para>bug fixed: when fcron and fcrontab were installed under a
non-privileged user rights, a normal user used to be not able to
use fcrontab.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug fixed : while fcrontab was asking user if he would like to
+ <para>bug fixed: while fcrontab was asking user if he would like to
correct an erroneous line, the answer was not correctly
handled.</para>
</listitem>
root) for basic security reasons.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : fcron used to crash after a file was deleted
+ <para>bug corrected: fcron used to crash after a file was deleted
from memory in some conditions.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>corrected the bug which used to appear when a line was put
- several times in the serial queue : in this case, fcron used not
+ several times in the serial queue: in this case, fcron used not
to count correctly the number of running serial jobs.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : fcrontab used not to remove the temporary file
+ <para>bug corrected: fcrontab used not to remove the temporary file
it creates if no modification where done to a file after an
edition using the -e option and on errors.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : fcrontab now defines correctly the remain
+ <para>bug corrected: fcrontab now defines correctly the remain
value of a line based on time and date beginning with a "&" but
without runfreq definition.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : fcron used to not install correctly a file
+ <para>bug corrected: fcron used to not install correctly a file
edited if a correction was made.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>bug corrected : reset option was not working correctly when
+ <para>bug corrected: reset option was not working correctly when
set to a single line.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>the value of the runas and mailto options are now stored
- internally as a uid number : you must reinstall all the system's
+ internally as a uid number: you must reinstall all the system's
fcrontabs if you change the uid of a user.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>jobs can now be run be run one after the other (option
- "serial") : when the job should normally be run, it is added to a
+ "serial"): when the job should normally be run, it is added to a
queue, which entries are executed one by one. It permits to avoid
the use of a lot of system resources for a brief moment by the
simultaneous execution of several tasks.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<title>From version 0.8.1 to 0.8.2</title>
<listitem>
- <para>code has been optimized : The jobs are now queued in order of
+ <para>code has been optimized: The jobs are now queued in order of
execution. It permits avoid useless tests of all jobs every time
fcron wakes up, speeds up the determination of the time fcron
should sleep, speeds up the processing after the end of a job,
etc. I don't know why I haven't made it before :-) ...</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>fcrontab has been improved : it is now more stable (many bugs
+ <para>fcrontab has been improved: it is now more stable (many bugs
which used to make fcrontab crash in case of errors in the
fcrontab has been fixed). Plus, it now asks if you want to make
corrections if needed when editing.</para>
projects / fcron / commitdiff