55 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
55 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
mini-at
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========================================================================
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(c)2006, Laurence Withers, <l@lwithers.me.uk>.
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Released under the GNU GPLv2. See file COPYING or
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http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for details.
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Really Quick Instructions
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-------------------------
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To build: ./make.sh
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To install: ./make.sh install
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(you might want to set PREFIX, by default it's /usr/local)
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Rationale
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---------
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Why this and not the standard `at' suite?
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1) Deals with non-monotonic time (unfortunately this means we have to
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wake up once every so often to check if our time is too far out).
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2) Simpler specification of timestamp (uses ISO8601).
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3) Allows redirection of stdin from a file which is automatically
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deleted.
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4) Flexible user control through use of Uinx sockets.
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Instructions
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------------
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Run the programs with `--help' for a summary.
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The daemon, mini-atd, must be run in the background. It is responsible for keeping track of commands
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to run and for running them at the appropriate time. The client, mini-at, uses a named socket to
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communicate with the daemon. By default, the daemon creates this socket at ``~/.mini-atd''.
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The daemon can either run in the foreground (default) or in the background, with the `--daemon' or
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`-d' option. You can change the name of the socket it uses, and the permissions on the socket. By
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default, the permissions are 0600. This means that only the user who ran the daemon (or root) can
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cause commands to be run. Commands are always run as the user who ran the daemon, so it is important
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to ensure that only trusted users have access to the socket.
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The client uses a time specification in ISO8601. If you don't fully specify the time, it uses the
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earliest possible interpretation (so `2006' would give `2006-01-01T00:00:00'). If no time zone is
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specified, UTC is assumed, but it is best to explicitly indicate this with a Z.
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If you wish to provide stdin other than /dev/null for a process, then you can specify a file on the
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client commandline using `-f' or `--file'. Note that this file will be deleted once the process is
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run. Alternatively, you can use `-f -' and pipe the content you want to the stdin of the client,
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which will store a copy in a temporary file.
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If you wish to run one program but pretend that you've run it as something else, you can specify the
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argv0 option in the client. By default, this will just be a copy of the command name.
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The client will copy its commandline arguments from the shell, and performs no processing on them.
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This means that it does not expand words or perform quoting.
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