does atd exist?

[lhorner]

I found the line in the crontab file to uncomment so that batch should work (i.e. it checks for batch things to run every 10 minutes), but I don't ever find atd running and I haven't yet gotten a job to actually run with batch as far as I can tell. Does it exist? How do I enable it if it does? Where do I get it or some substitute if it doesn't?

 

[howardm4]

batch calls /usr/libexec/atrun which essentially
calls the normal cron daemon (which must
be running)

Where are you getting the atd concept from?

Also, are you trying to do this as a
normal user or as root? did you setup
the at.allow file and/or at.deny?

Why bother using batch anyway instead of
just 'at'?

did you check your loadaverage ('uptime')?

 

[lhorner]

Thanks for the response.

Batch will wait until one job is finished before starting the next one, which for the number crunching I'm doing makes more sense than running lots of things slowly all together as at would do. (At least in principle this works. I think from what I read that the AT&T version that's used in OSX isn't the best one for multiple users competing to run jobs.)

I've uncommented the line in crontab that has atrun run every 10 minutes. Now at least jobs disappear from the queue. The problem is that they don't apparently do anything. Hence I began to wonder if for some reason I needed both atd and cron.

I see that cron runs, but I do not see a crond. Should there be one?

 

[howardm4]

cron is the daemon (not crond in the usual
'exception proves the rule' kinda way).

I could be wrong but I've never seen
that syntax for 'every ten minutes' and I
wonder if there isn't something odd w/ that.
Depends on the version and it's parsing
ability I suppose.

You might want to try
0,10,20,30,40,50

for the minute specification.

You might want to try a simple few 'at'
commands to see if the whole cron
subsystem is working.

 

[lhorner]

Nope, cron seems not to be functioning. A call to ps shows cron running, but a simple at command to write the date to a file doesn't produce a file. What should I be trying next?

 

[BSDimwit]

Are you using the crontab -e command to add a cron job? Perhaps its running, but something is wrong with the permissions of the file you trying to write to, or the directory for that matter.

Add a personal crontab instead of altering the system's. Generally its easier, and you won't have to worry about messing anything up.

If you need this cronjob to run as root, then become root and add it in the same way... crontab -e

Hope this helps.

 

[lhorner]

OK, I checked that. cron jobs (as in entries in a crontab file) seem to run fine. at, however, still doesn't do what it ought to do. I'm more confused than ever.