Re: [squid-users] Setting a cron job at system startup

On tor, 2007-08-02 at 21:07 +0530, Santosh Rani wrote:
> I have setup cron under Cygwin to update my malware list on the Squid
> that is running on Windows.
> I want to setup a cron job which rotates the Squid log files when the
> system is started up in the morning for the first time.

For running daily/weekly tasks on machines which is turned off from time
to time anacron is a good choice. It's like cron but doesn't assume the
machine is always on and will start the jobs which should have run while
the machine was off when it starts.

The setup consists of three parts:

a) anacron, with it's anacrontab describing the tasks to run
b) cron or another scheduler, with a crontab entry running anacron once
per day at a suitable time.
c) A boot action running anacron once at boot.

Note: The scheduler in Windows is a usable substitute for cron, and also
allows you to set up boot actions. Not sure it also deals with jobs
which should have been run while the machine was off.

Regards
Henrik