.TH ANACRONTAB 5 2004-07-11 "Pascal Hakim" "Anacron Users' Manual" .SH NAME /etc/anacrontab \- configuration file for anacron .SH DESCRIPTION The file .I /etc/anacrontab describes the jobs controlled by \fBanacron\fR(8).\& Its lines can be of three kinds: job-description lines, environment assignments, or empty lines.\& .PP Job-description lines are of one of these two forms: .PP period delay job-identifier command .PP @period_name delay job-identify command .PP The .I period is specified in days, the .I delay in minutes.\& The .I job-identifier can contain any non-blank character, except slashes.\& It is used to identify the job in Anacron messages, and as the name for the job's timestamp file.\& The .I command can be any shell command.\& The fields can be separated by blank spaces or tabs.\& .I period_name can be set to .B monthly or .BR yearly .\& This will ensure jobs are only run once a month, no matter the number of days in this month, or the previous month; or analogously for the year.\& .PP Environment assignment lines are of the form: .PP VAR = VALUE .PP Spaces around .I VAR are removed.\& No spaces around .I VALUE are allowed \%(unless you want them to be part of the value).\& The assignment takes effect from the next line to the end of the file, or to the next assignment of the same variable.\& .PP Empty lines are either blank lines, line containing white-space only, or lines with white-space followed by a \&'#'\& followed by an arbitrary comment.\& .PP You can continue a line onto the next line by ending it with a \&'\e'.\& .SH "SEE ALSO" \fBanacron\fR(8) .PP The Anacron .I README file.\& .SH AUTHOR Itai Tzur \% .PP Currently maintained by Lance Lin \%.\&