CRON(8)                                                   CRON(8)

NAME
       cron - daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron)

SYNOPSIS
       cron

DESCRIPTION
       Cron  should  be  started from /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local.  It will return
       immediately, so you don't need to start it with '&'.

       Cron searches /var/spool/cron for crontab files which  are  named  after
       accounts  in  /etc/passwd;  crontabs found are loaded into memory.  Cron
       also searches for /etc/crontab and the files in the /etc/cron.d/  direc­
       tory, which are in a different format (see crontab(5)).  Cron then wakes
       up every minute, examining all stored crontabs, checking each command to
       see if it should be run in the current minute.  When executing commands,
       any output is mailed to the owner of the crontab (or to the  user  named
       in the MAILTO environment variable in the crontab, if such exists).

       Additionally,  cron  checks  each minute to see if its spool directory's
       modtime (or the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed,  and  if  it  has,
       cron  will  then  examine  the  modtime on all crontabs and reload those
       which have changed.  Thus cron need not be restarted whenever a  crontab
       file  is modified.  Note that the Crontab(1) command updates the modtime
       of the spool directory whenever it changes a crontab.

SEE ALSO
       crontab(1), crontab(5)

AUTHOR
       Paul Vixie 

                         20 December 1993                       1