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David Jones
Asked: 2011-01-24 10:46:21 +0800 CST

What is the proper setup for "anacron"? (Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04)

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I am running Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 on MediaTemple (ve) servers.

On both of them, the anacron setup is broken, ... and they have been broken since I first installed Ubuntu. It has only come to my attention recently, when I realize my log files were not rotating.

I am hoping someone who has anacron working can help diagnose the problem and suggest a fix.

Here is /etc/cron.d/anacron ... This part works correctly: Every morning at 7:30am, cron executes this command to start up anacron.

# /etc/cron.d/anacron: crontab entries for the anacron package

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

30 7    * * *   root    test -x /etc/init.d/anacron && /etc/init.d/anacron start >/dev/null

The problem is that /etc/init.d/anacron start fails:

# /etc/init.d/anacron start >/dev/null
start: Unknown job: anacron

Notice that /etc/init.d/anacron is a symbolic link to /lib/init/upstart-job:

# ls -l /etc/init.d/anacron
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan 12  2010 /etc/init.d/anacron -> /lib/init/upstart-job

Now I am stumped. Anyone have any suggestions how to fix this?

Take a look in /var/log and see if your log files are being rotated (as opposed to growing indefinitely). If they are being rotated, then you probably have a working anacron, so please check your setup and let me know how it differs from mine.

Thanks in advance, ...

ubuntu log-files cron init.d

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Upstart actually uses config files in /etc/init for each service, not /etc/init.d. I assume the /etc/init.d links are there to preserve compatibility with sysvinit. Here's the upstart getting started guide which explains this.

    I don't have an ubuntu system so I can't check the contents of /etc/init/anacron.conf, but I suspect from gooling it might just be exec anacron -s. Check in /etc/init.removed/ and see if there is an anacron.conf there that was removed by some upgrade process. You might be able to reinstall anacron to fix this as well.

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  2. Ubuntu 10.04 /etc/cron.d/anacron:

    # /etc/cron.d/anacron: crontab entries for the anacron package

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

#30 7    * * *   root   test -x /etc/init.d/anacron && /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d anacron start >/dev/null
30 7    * * *   root    start -q anacron || :

    /etc/init.d/anacron start:

    # /etc/init.d/anacron start
Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service anacron start

Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an
Upstart job, you may also use the start(8) utility, e.g. start anacron

# ls -al /etc/init.d/anacron 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 2011-01-10 19:05 /etc/init.d/anacron -> /lib/init/upstart-job
anacron start/running, process 5446

    /etc/cron.daily/logrotate can be started without anacron, when /usr/sbin/anacron not existed(/etc/crontab):

    25 6    * * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6    * * 7   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6    1 * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )
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