NAME

       bcron-update - Update system crontabs.

SYNOPSIS

       bcron-update path [ path ...  ]

DESCRIPTION

       bcron-update  polls  the  named  files or directories periodically to see if there are any
       new, changed, or removed files.  When it detects changes, it mirrors  those  changes  into
       the crontab spool directory.  bcron-update runs as root in order to be able to read system
       files that would potentially be unreadable otherwise.

       On Debian, if path is a directory, bcron-update skips files in this directory  with  names
       that  do  not  solely  consist  of lower- and uppercase letters ('a'-'z', 'A'-'Z'), digits
       ('0'-'9'), underscores ('_'), and hyphens ('-').

EXAMPLES

       To mirror modern vixie-cron's behavior, use:
       bcron-update /etc/crontab /etc/cron.d

ENVIRONMENT

       BCRON_SPOOL
            The spool directory for bcron.  Defaults to /var/spool/cron.

       BCRON_USER
            After writing files and before moving them into their  final  location,  bcron-update
            changes the ownership of the file to this user so that bcron-sched can read them.

SEE ALSO

       bcron-sched(8)

DIAGNOSTICS

       bcron-update outputs three different kinds of messages about actions it is taking.

       Rescanning /etc/cron.d
            The  named  directory  has been modified, and will be scanned to determine what files
            have been added or deleted.

       -/etc/cron.d/oldfile
            The named file no longer exists and will be removed from the spool.

       +/etc/cron.d/newfile
            The named file was either created or modified since the last scan, and will be copied
            into the spool.

AUTHOR

       Bruce Guenter <bruceg@em.ca>

                                                                                  bcron-update(8)