NAME

       /etc/anacrontab - monotonic jobs

DESCRIPTION

       The file /etc/anacrontab follow the rules previously set by anacron(8).

       Lines starting with '#' are comments.

       Environment variables can be set using VAR=VALUE keypairs.

       The special RANDOM_DELAY (in minutes) environment variable is translated to AccuracySec=.

       The  special START_HOURS_RANGE (in hours) environment variable is translated to the 'hour'
       component of OnCalendar=.  anacron expect a range in the  format  ##-##,  systemd-crontab-
       generator only use the starting hour of the range as reference.

       The other lines are job-descriptions that follow this layout:

       period delay job-identifier command

       *      period  is  a  number of days to wait between each job execution, or special values
              @daily, @weekly, @monthly, @yearly

       *      delay is a number of extra minutes to wait before starting job. It is translated in
              OnBootSec=

       *      job-identifier is a single word. systemd-crontab-generator uses it to construct the
              dynamic unit  names:  cron-<job-identifier>-root-0.timer  and  matching  cron-<job-
              identifier>-root-0.service

       *      command is the command that is run by a shell

BUGS

       systemd-crontab-generator doesn't support multiline commands.

       Any period greater than 30 is rounded to the closest month

       There  are  subtle differences on how anacron & systemd handle persistente timers: anacron
       will run a weekly job at most once a week, with always a minimum delay of 6  days  between
       runs;  where systemd will try to run it every monday at 00:00; or as soon the system boot.
       In the most extreme case, if a system was only started on sunday; a weekly  job  will  run
       this day and the again the next (mon)day.
       With  careful  manual  settings,  it would be possible to run the real anacron binary (not
       your distro's package) with systemd-cron; if you need an identical behaviour.
       There is no difference for the daily job.

DIAGNOSTICS

       After editing /etc/anacrontab, you can run journalctl -n and systemctl list-timers to  see
       if the timers have well been updated.

SEE ALSO

       systemd-crontab-generator(8), systemd.timer(5)

AUTHOR

       Alexandre Detiste <alexandre.detiste@gmail.com>