AUTHOR: Leslie Polzer <leslie.polzer@gmx.net>

DATE: 2003-09-14

LICENSE: GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.2

SYNOPSIS: Fixing, compiling and installing dcron.

DESCRIPTION:
This guide documents how to fix, compile and install dcron, a light-weight
and stable cron for UNIX systems without bells and whistles.

PREREQUISITES:
None.

HINT:

Contents
--------
1 Why use dcron when there's fcron?
2 Preparing the files
3 Compiling
4 Post-Install
5 Frontends

1 Why use dcron when there's fcron?
-----------------------------------
- dcron is SIMPLE:
	dcron just gives you two binaries, crond and crontab, and consists
	only of a few source files.
- dcron is SMALL:
	binaries (i386-elf) are only about 25k
- dcron is MATURE:
	it is many distributions' default cron and in use since ~1994.
- dcron is SECURE:
	that's the consequence of being simple and mature.
- dcron WORKS:
	fcron only worked for root on my box, no matter how hard I tried.


2 Preparing the files
---------------------
Download dcron 2.3.3 here:
	http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/daemons/cron/dcron-2.3.3.tar.gz

You will also need this patch I made:
	http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~polzer/patches/dcron-2.3.3.patch

Unpack the tarball, put the patch into the resulting folder and cd into it.


3 Compiling
-----------
Apply the patch:

	patch < dcron-2.3.3.patch

Now you can do the actual compile and install:
	
	make CC="gcc $CFLAGS"
	make install

Last line as superuser.


4 Post-Install
--------------
Start the cron daemon from your bootscripts.
dcron can only log to STDOUT so add a I/O redirect:

	/usr/bin/crond -l8 >> /var/log/cron.log 2>&1

'8' is the loglevel.

If you want to allow every user to use cron, you're fine now.
If you want to restrict access to cron, do:

	groupadd cron
	chown root.cron /usr/bin/crontab
	chmod 4750 /usr/bin/crontab
	
Now add every user that is allowed to use cron to the new group 'cron'.


5 Frontends
-----------
If you want a nice GTK frontend to cron (hate to remember those field orders!),
look out for 'gcrontab'. There is also a frontend for GNOME and maybe one for
the console.


CHANGELOG:
[2003-09-14]
 * Initial release
