Mcron

The GNU package mcron (Mellor's cron) is a 100% compatible replacement for Vixie cron. It is written in pure Guile, and allows configuration files to be written in scheme (as well as Vixie's original format) for infinite flexibility in specifying when jobs should be run. Mcron was written by Dale Mellor (see his personal web pages).

Mcron was proposed to the FSF (2003-07-11) as a component of the GNU system, and accepted on 2003-12-02. This is the first release of mcron as a GNU package, reflected in the increment in the major version number. However, due to the disruption to service on GNU's Savannah server, this release is temporarily being distributed from the rdmp.org server.

A copy of a white paper describes the motivation and initial design concepts of mcron.

The texinfo manual is now complete and describes how the realized incarnation of mcron works. This is distributed in all the releases, and the latest one can be perused online by clicking the link above.

Work is currently underway to develop a GNOME-2 front-end to mcron. Watch this space!

Releases.

1.0.0 --- DOWNLOAD

Upgraded all auxiliary and documentation files to reflect the fact that we are now a GNU package, and this is version 1. The MD5 fingerprint of the tarball is

            9a80fa4afc0abd8560fe8651aa8a9939  mcron-1.0.0.tar.gz
         

0.99.4

Two package configuration additions have been made in light of the review made by the GNU organization (thanks to Karl Berry for these suggestions):

• the configure script now checks that a suitably modern Guile package is installed on the system,
• the configure script provides options for placing the spool directories in non-standard places, as seems to have been the practice in most installations of Vixie-ish crons.

Due to the disruption to service, this version is neither tagged in CVS nor released to the masses.

0.99.3 --- DOWNLOAD

The code is now broken out into modules which can be used in other programs (the API is fully documented in the manual).

0.99.2 --- DOWNLOAD

100% Vixie compatibility is now achieved. The code is fully functional and production quality, but still hasn't had any testing done.

0.99.1 --- DOWNLOAD

The code base is currently functionally complete and written to production quality. Unfortunately the current incarnation of Guile is unable to support it fully. As this will take some time for me to sort out, I have made an interim release 0.99.1 which only has the mcron personality active by default. There are two main reasons why I have released this now.

1. The world deserves mcron, even without the Vixie compatibility.
2. Maybe someone who knows the Guile innards better than me will look into the problem (I don't want to harass the Guile team directly - they're making good, steady progress as it is).

Administration.

Temporarily, this package is being distributed through the holes http://www.rdmp.org/mcron (this page) and ftp://ftp.rdmp.org/ (downloads). It is destined to finish up nestling in http://www.gnu.org/software/mcron and ftp://ftp.gnu.org/mcron. Mailing lists are currently being established, and are bugs-mcron@gnu.org for reporting problems with the package; help-mcron@gnu.org for requesting help from the community (including the author of the package) in using mcron; and info-mcron@gnu.org will diseminate items of news as they happen regarding the package.

Once normal service is resumed: For more information on the development of mcron and to see the CVS tree please visit mcron's Savannah page.