PERIODIC.CONF(5) BSD File Formats Manual PERIODIC.CONF(5)NAMEperiodic.conf — periodic job configuration information
DESCRIPTION
The file periodic.conf contains a description of how daily, weekly and
monthly system maintenance jobs should run. It resides in the
/etc/defaults directory and parts may be overridden by a file of the same
name in /etc, which itself may be overridden by the
/etc/periodic.conf.local file.
The periodic.conf file is actually sourced as a shell script from each of
the periodic scripts and is intended to simply provide default configura‐
tion variables.
The following variables are used by periodic(8) itself:
local_periodic
(str) List of directories to search for periodic scripts. This
list is always prefixed with /etc/periodic, and is only used when
an argument to periodic(8) is not an absolute directory name.
⟨dir⟩_output
(path or list) What to do with the output of the scripts executed
from the directory dir. If this variable is set to an absolute
path name, output is logged to that file, otherwise it is taken
as one or more space separated email addresses and mailed to
those users. If this variable is not set or is empty, output is
sent to standard output.
For an unattended machine, suitable values for daily_output,
weekly_output, and monthly_output might be “/var/log/daily.log”,
“/var/log/weekly.log”, and “/var/log/monthly.log” respectively,
as newsyslog(8) will rotate these files (if they exists) at the
appropriate times.
⟨dir⟩_show_success
⟨dir⟩_show_info
⟨dir⟩_show_badconfig
(bool) These variables control whether periodic(8) will mask the
output of the executed scripts based on their return code (where
dir is the base directory name in which each script resides). If
the return code of a script is ‘0’ and ⟨dir⟩_show_success is set
to “NO”, periodic(8) will mask the script's output. If the
return code of a script is ‘1’ and ⟨dir⟩_show_info is set to
“NO”, periodic(8) will mask the script's output. If the return
code of a script is ‘2’ and ⟨dir⟩_show_badconfig is set to “NO”,
periodic(8) will mask the script's output. If these variables
are set to neither “YES” nor “NO”, they default to “YES”, “YES”
and “NO” respectively.
Refer to the periodic(8) manual page for how script return codes
are interpreted.
The following variables are used by the standard scripts that reside in
/etc/periodic/daily:
daily_clean_disks_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to remove all files matching
daily_clean_disks_files daily.
daily_clean_disks_files
(str) Set to a list of file names to match. Wild cards are per‐
mitted.
daily_clean_disks_days
(num) When daily_clean_disks_enable is set to “YES”, this must
also be set to the number of days old that a file's access and
modification times must be before it is deleted.
daily_clean_disks_verbose
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the removed files to be reported
in your daily output.
daily_clean_tmps_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to clear temporary directories
daily.
daily_clean_tmps_dirs
(str) Set to the list of directories to clear if
daily_clean_tmps_enable is set to “YES”.
daily_clean_tmps_days
(num) When daily_clean_tmps_enable is set, this must also be set
to the number of days old that a file's access and modification
times must be before it is deleted.
daily_clean_tmps_ignore
(str) Set to the list of files that should not be deleted when
daily_clean_tmps_enable is set to “YES”. Wild card characters
are permitted.
daily_clean_tmps_verbose
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the removed files to be reported
in your daily output.
daily_clean_preserve_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you wish to remove old files from
/var/preserve.
daily_clean_preserve_days
(num) Set to the number of days that files must not have been
modified before they are deleted.
daily_clean_preserve_verbose
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the removed files to be reported
in your daily output.
daily_clean_msgs_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you wish old system messages to be purged.
daily_clean_msgs_days
(num) Set to the number of days that files must not have been
modified before they are deleted. If this variable is left
blank, the msgs(1) default is used.
daily_clean_rwho_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you wish old files in /var/who to be
purged.
daily_clean_rwho_days
(num) Set to the number of days that files must not have been
modified before they are deleted.
daily_clean_rwho_verbose
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the removed files to be reported
in your daily output.
daily_clean_hoststat_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to run sendmail -bH to automatically purge
stale entries from sendmail(8)'s host status cache. Files will
be deleted using the same criteria as sendmail(8) would normally
use when determining whether to believe the cached information,
as configured in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf.
daily_backup_passwd_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the /etc/master.passwd and
/etc/group files backed up and reported on. Reporting consists
of checking both files for modifications and running chkgrp(8) on
the group file.
daily_backup_aliases_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the /etc/mail/aliases file backed
up and modifications to be displayed in your daily output.
daily_calendar_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run calendar -a daily.
daily_accounting_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to rotate your daily accounting
files. No rotations are necessary unless accounting_enable is
enabled in rc.conf(5).
daily_accounting_compress
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want your daily accounting files to be
compressed using gzip(1).
daily_accounting_save
(num) When daily_accounting_enable is set, this may also be set
to the number of daily accounting files that are to be saved.
The default is “3”.
daily_accounting_flags
(str) Set to the arguments to pass to the sa(8) utility (in addi‐
tion to -s) when daily_accounting_enable is set to “YES”. The
default is -q.
daily_news_expire_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run /etc/news.expire.
daily_status_disks_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run df(1) (with the arguments
supplied in daily_status_disks_df_flags) and dump -W.
daily_status_disks_df_flags
(str) Set to the arguments for the df(1) utility when
daily_status_disks_enable is set to “YES”.
daily_status_ata_raid_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run atacontrol status on your
ataraid(4) arrays.
daily_status_gmirror_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run gmirror status on your
gmirror(8) devices.
daily_status_graid3_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run graid3 status on your
graid3(8) devices.
daily_status_gstripe_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run gstripe status on your
gstripe(8) devices.
daily_status_gconcat_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run gconcat status on your
gconcat(8) devices.
daily_status_network_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run netstat -i.
daily_status_network_usedns
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run netstat(1) without the -n
option (to do DNS lookups).
daily_status_rwho_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run uptime(1) (or ruptime(1)
if rwhod_enable is set to “YES” in /etc/rc.conf).
daily_status_mailq_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run mailq(1).
daily_status_mailq_shorten
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to shorten the mailq(1) output
when daily_status_mailq_enable is set to “YES”.
daily_status_include_submit_mailq
(bool) Set to “YES” if you also want to run mailq(1) on the sub‐
mit mail queue when daily_status_mailq_enable is set to “YES”.
This may not work with MTAs other than sendmail(8).
daily_status_security_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run the security check. The
security check is another set of periodic(8) scripts. The system
defaults are in /etc/periodic/security. Local scripts should be
placed in /usr/local/etc/periodic/security. See the periodic(8)
manual page for more information.
daily_status_security_inline
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want the security check output inline.
The default is to either mail or log the output according to the
value of daily_status_security_output.
daily_status_security_output
(str) Where to send the output of the security check if
daily_status_security_inline is set to “NO”. This variable
behaves in the same way as the *_output variables above, namely
it can be set either to one or more email addresses or to an
absolute file name.
daily_status_security_diff_flags
(str) Set to the arguments to pass to the diff(1) utility when
generating differences. The default is -b -u.
daily_status_security_chksetuid_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to compare the modes and modification times
of setuid executables with the previous day's values.
daily_status_security_chkmounts_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to check for changes mounted file systems to
the previous day's values.
daily_status_security_noamd
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to ignore amd(8) mounts when com‐
paring against yesterday's file system mounts in the
daily_status_security_chkmounts_enable check.
daily_status_security_chkuid0_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to check /etc/master.passwd for accounts with
UID 0.
daily_status_security_passwdless_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to check /etc/master.passwd for accounts with
empty passwords.
daily_status_security_logincheck_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to check /etc/login.conf ownership, see
login.conf(5) for more information.
daily_status_security_ipfwdenied_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to show log entries for packets denied by
ipfw(8) since yesterday's check.
daily_status_security_ipfdenied_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to show log entries for packets denied by
ipf(8) since yesterday's check.
daily_status_security_pfdenied_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to show log entries for packets denied by
pf(4) since yesterday's check.
daily_status_security_ipfwlimit_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to display ipfw(8) rules that have reached
their verbosity limit.
daily_status_security_kernelmsg_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to show new dmesg(8) entries since yester‐
day's check.
daily_status_security_loginfail_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to display failed logins from
/var/log/messages in the previous day.
daily_status_security_tcpwrap_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” to display connections denied by tcpwrappers
(see hosts_access(5)) from /var/log/messages during the previous
day.
daily_status_mail_rejects_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to summarise mail rejections
logged to /var/log/maillog for the previous day.
daily_status_mail_rejects_logs
(num) Set to the number of maillog files that should be checked
for yesterday's mail rejects.
daily_status_named_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to summarise denied zone trans‐
fers (AXFR and IXFR) for the previous day.
daily_status_named_usedns
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to enable reverse DNS lookups.
daily_status_ntpd
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to enable NTP status check.
daily_queuerun_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to manually run the mail queue at
least once a day.
daily_submit_queuerun
(bool) Set to “YES” if you also want to manually run the submit
mail queue at least once a day when daily_queuerun_enable is set
to “YES”.
daily_scrub_zfs_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run a zfs scrub periodically.
daily_scrub_zfs_pools
(str) A space separated list of names of zfs pools to scrub. If
the list is empty or not set, all zfs pools are scrubbed.
daily_scrub_zfs_default_threshold
(int) Number of days between a scrub if no pool-specific thresh‐
old is set. The default value if no value is set is 30.
daily_scrub_zfs_⟨poolname⟩_threshold
(int) The same as daily_scrub_zfs_default_threshold but specific
to the pool ⟨poolname⟩.
daily_local
(str) Set to a list of extra scripts that should be run after all
other daily scripts. All scripts must be absolute path names.
The following variables are used by the standard scripts that reside in
/etc/periodic/weekly:
weekly_locate_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb. This script is run using nice -5
as user “nobody”, and generates the table used by the locate(1)
command.
weekly_whatis_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run
/usr/libexec/makewhatis.local. This script regenerates the data‐
base used by the apropos(1) command.
weekly_catman_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to run /usr/libexec/catman.local.
This script processes all out of date manual pages, speeding up
the man(1) command at the expense of disk space.
weekly_noid_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to locate orphaned files on the
system. An orphaned file is one with an invalid owner or group.
weekly_noid_dirs
(str) A list of directories under which orphaned files are
searched for. This would usually be set to /.
weekly_status_pkg_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to use pkg_version(1) to list
installed packages which are out of date.
pkg_version
(str) When weekly_status_pkg_enable is set to “YES”, this vari‐
able specifies the program that is used to determine the out of
date packages. If unset, the pkg_version(1) program is used. As
an example, this variable might be set to “portversion” if the
ports/sysutils/portupgrade port has been installed.
pkg_version_index
(str) This variable specifies the INDEX file from /usr/ports that
should be used by pkg_version(1). Because the dependency tree
may be substantially different between versions of FreeBSD, there
may be more than one INDEX file in /usr/ports.
Note, if the pkg_version variable is set to “portversion”, it
will also be necessary to arrange that the correct INDEX file is
specified using environment variables and that pkg_version_index
is cleared in /etc/periodic.conf (“pkg_version_index=”).
weekly_local
(str) Set to a list of extra scripts that should be run after all
other weekly scripts. All scripts must be absolute path names.
The following variables are used by the standard scripts that reside in
/etc/periodic/monthly:
monthly_accounting_enable
(bool) Set to “YES” if you want to do login accounting using the
ac(8) command.
monthly_local
(str) Set to a list of extra scripts that should be run after all
other monthly scripts. All scripts must be absolute path names.
FILES
/etc/defaults/periodic.conf The default configuration file. This file
contains all default variables and values.
/etc/periodic.conf The usual system specific variable override
file.
/etc/periodic.conf.local An additional override file, useful when
/etc/periodic.conf is shared or distributed.
SEE ALSOapropos(1), calendar(1), df(1), diff(1), gzip(1), locate(1), man(1),
msgs(1), netstat(1), nice(1), pkg_version(1), login.conf(5), rc.conf(5),
ac(8), chkgrp(8), dump(8), newsyslog(8), periodic(8), sendmail(8)HISTORY
The periodic.conf file appeared in FreeBSD 4.1.
AUTHORS
Brian Somers ⟨brian@Awfulhak.org⟩
BSD June 15, 2010 BSD
