crontab Daemon-from-Hell

[Thad P Floryan]

Re: Tom Neff's comments about my "discovery" ...

The "stock" crontab distributed with the UNIXPC contains this line:

0 4 * * * /bin/su uucpadm % /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day > /dev/null

and the "stock" /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.day script contains the "find" that
deletes aged files.

>From private email I've received, a LOT of people's stomachs sunk to the floor
when they read my posting, and they quickly discovered that a lot of files have
been deleted by the "stock" uudemon.day script.  One person threatens to
sue AT&T.

The point being: the "stock" uudemon.day is reprehensible and irresponsible
by not warning about pending deletion; my solution was an addition to
uudemon.day that provides advance warning of the pending doom.  Variations on
my original proposal include sending mail, but I still prefer my solution
since EVERYONE (among the user community of a given system) is apprised of the
situation and will be alerted to take action before it's too late.

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]