News
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| 12/05/2021 | fcron 3.3.1 (dev) released Fixed the compilation with SELinux support on newer systems, and various improvements to install/boot scripts (in particular on systemd) |
| 07/31/2019 | Git repo moved to Github The official repository of fcron was moved from TuxFamily to https://github.com/yo8192/fcron. This will give a more advanced and familiar interface and workflows, and make it easier to find. |
| 08/14/2016 | fcron 3.3.0 (dev) released fcron now handles computer suspend/resume. Added a 'runatresume' option, as well as a Vixie-cron-style '@resume' shortcut. |
| 06/26/2016 | fcron 3.2.1 released The main change in this release is that @-lines can now be run up to every second (previously every 10s at most). Also the install script now fully supports systemd. |
| 07/06/2014 | Stable release fcron 3.2.0 The 3.1.X branch is now considered stable and thus graduated to a new stable 3.2.X branch. fcron 3.2.0 has many improvement over 3.0.6: (hopefully) full Vixie cron compatibility (@reboot etc shortcuts, auditing, job environment, email headers, ...), readline support for fcrondyn, improved Solaris 10 and SE Linux support. Quite a few changes were also done in the background to make the code easier to maintain and more robust. A couple of bugs and a couple of cosmetic improvements were made between 3.1.3 and 3.2.0. |
| 05/11/2014 | fcron 3.1.3 released A focus on bug fixes and stability. Also improved Solaris 10 and SE Linux support. The 3.1.X dev branch is now close (in terms of features and stability) to be made production. |
| 03/03/2013 | fcron 3.1.2 released No real new feature, but multiple bug were fixed in this release, plus some changes to make the code more robust. |
| 01/01/2013 | fcron 3.1.1 released Added readline support for fcrondyn, logging to a file without syslog, and some bug fixes. See changes for a detailed list of changes. |
| 12/19/2012 | fcron 3.1.0 released I finally found the time to make a new dev release, which includes quite a few changes coded over the last couple of years. This release focuses on Vixie cron compatibility (@reboot etc shortcuts, auditing, job environment, email headers, ...) and refactoring to make the code easier to maintain. fcrondyn also doesn't require a password anymore (only really tested on Linux, feedback and help welcome on other platforms). You will find a few bug fixes too. As usual, please refer to the changes file for more details. |
| 12/05/2012 | fcron git repository For the more adventurous, or if you would like to contribute to the development of fcron, you can also access the version in development on fcron's git repository: git clone git://git.tuxfamily.org/gitroot/fcron/fcron.git
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| 04/05/2010 | fcron 3.0.6 released This new release fixes an issue preventing user from using fcrontab correctly on some systems: they would get an operation not permitted error message. A few other minor bug fixes are included as well. |
| 03/04/2010 | fcron 3.0.5 released The prior focus of this release is to fix a security issue that was found and would allow a malicious user to read fcron configuration files and the fcrontabs of non-root users. It also brings various minor improvements and bug fixes: please check the changes file for more details. |
| 11/08/2007 | fcron 3.0.4 released In this release the option random has been improved, a new option erroronlymail has been added so as an email is sent only when the job exited with a non-zero status. Some cleanup on the file closures have been done, which should remove the problems some users would see when job were executed (could not read/write pid, etc). |
| 06/05/2007 | fcron 3.0.3 released This stable release is almost identical to development version 3.0.3-rc1, apart from minor changes for non-Linux platforms. Since 3.0.2, the build and install processes have changed significantly and AIX and Solaris platforms are supported better. Please bear in mind that the default install paths have changed since 3.0.3-rc1 to make them more standard. |
| 04/15/2007 | fcron 3.0.3-rc1 is out This development version contains major changes in the build and install processec: the underlying idea is to make them more standard and to make fcron easier to package. This in particular means that the default install paths have changed. Some portability work has also been done for the AIX and Solaris platforms, and two new environment variables -- LOGNAME and TZ -- are now defined when a job is run. |
| 01/15/2007 | fcron 3.0.2 This version features (among other things) some bug fixes for BSD system, and an improved compatibility with Vixie Cron. There are also some changes about the order of priority to determine which shell will be used by fcron to run a job: please check the changes for more details. A development version should be released soon: it will in particular include some significant changes in the configure script and the Makefile to ease up the work of the packagers and be more standard with the behavior of other packages. |
| 02/06/2006 | fcron 3.0.1 is out ! A new version with several bug fixes, especially for BSD systems. The man pages have also been translated to French. Please note that a buffer overflow has been found in the program convert-fcrontab which is part of fcron 3.0.0: it seems that this bug is not exploitable, but it is safer to upgrade to fcron 3.0.1 which includes a fix for this bug as soon as possible. |
| 09/09/2005 | Stable fcron 3.0.0 is out ! Quite a lot has changed since the 2.0.x branch:
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| 07/28/2005 | Fcron 2.9.7 released Option timezone has been added to replace option tzdiff : with timezone, you can run a job in a different timezone than the system one. Plus, it handles correctly the DST changes. The bug which made fcron send empty mails on very up-to-date systems has also been fixed. This version will be marked as stable 3.0.0 if no major problem are reported. |
| 03/12/2005 | Version 2.9.6 released This release fixes the latest daylight save time change bug : several checks have also been added to avoid such bugs. Fcrontab behaves better when there is no space left on the partition. Moreover, a script (not enabled by default) has been added to "emulate" Vixie cron behavior about /etc/crontab and /etc/cron.d (ie. when there is a change, automatically take it into account, without the need of running fcrontab by hand). See the beginning of script/check_system_crontabs for more information. |
| 11/15/2004 | Security vulnerabilities found in fcronsighup : fcron 2.0.2 and 2.9.5.1 released Security vulnerabilites have been found in fcronsighup, the program used by fcrontab to tell fcron it should reload its configuration. Version 2.0.1 and 2.9.5 are affected, and some previous versions too. You are highly encouraged to upgrade to fcron 2.0.2 (stable branch) or fcron 2.9.5.1, which fix the issue and improve fcronsighup's overall security. |
| 09/03/2004 | Fcron 2.9.5 is out A release with 2 major bug fixes, some new commands for fcrondyn, and several minor changes and bug fixes. |
| 04/25/2004 | fcron 2.0.1 released This new version of the stable branch fixes a nasty bug which occured on daylight saving time change on some systems. You are highly encouraged to upgrade to this version if you are currently using fcron 2.0.0. |
| 04/15/2004 | New : Development Mailing List I've created a mailing list for fcron development. See the contact page for subscription instructions. |
| 04/15/2004 | New version of fcron's web site It should be clearer and nicer than the previous one. If you find a bug (hopefully you won't ;) ), please tell me at . |
| 12/29/2003 | New : user support mailing list I've created a mailing list for user support. See the contact page for subscription instructions. |
| 12/29/2003 | I'm back ! -- fcron 2.9.4 released After a year without much work on fcron because of my studies, I have more time now, and I'm back on it. Here is fcron 2.9.4 : makewhatis bug is fixed at last (it was an abusively ignored signal SIGPIPE : stupid ... but hard to find !), there are also several other bug fixes an minor improvements. Apart from SE Linux support, there is no new functionnality in this version. |
| 04/26/2003 | Update on the "makewhatis" bug I cannot work on it for now (see below), but I'd like to collect some info about this bug ... In fact, I would like to know which systems/configs are hit by the bug (as far as I know, only Redhat based linux systems, such as Mandrake - some other systems, such as Debian, have no makewhatis command), and if the bug is only about some error messages, or if the job is not done correctly (currently, I don't know how to check that : any idea ?). It would be great if some people could send me a mail to tell me if they experience the bug or not, what system they run, etc. Thanks. Last, but not least, you are hit by this bug if you get a lot of messages like that in makewhatis's mailed job report : "bzcat: I/O or other error, bailing out. Possible reason follows. bzcat: Broken pipe Input file = ./man.1.bz2, output file = (stdout)" |
| 03/02/2003 | Too much work ... :( Since I have competitive exams in a few months, I have very little time to work on fcron these days ... Fcron 2.9.3 seems quite stable and bug free, but one remains : the "makewhatis" bug. I still don't know if it's a bug of awk (which is used by makewhatis) or fcron (probably the latter :) - but fcron might make awk run into a bug), nor if the script works correctly (does awk try again after an error and succeed ?) or not. I'd appreciate (and users facing this bug too ! ;) ) if someone could investigate and try to fix the bug : feel free to contact me if you need more details on the bug or on fcron itself. Otherwise, I'll fix it after my exams. |
| 11/02/2002 | Dev release 2.9.3 is out of the press ! The save-to-disk code has been rewritten in part : it is much faster than in 2.9.2, and more robust : it should avoid any loss of data in case of an hardware failure, system crash, etc. Fcrondyn has 2 new commands : renice and kill. Some code clean, bug fixes, and minor security bug fixes and improvements. |
| 10/05/2002 | Dev release 2.9.2 is out of the press ! Some more commands for fcrondyn have been implemented. A special user "systab" has been added to store the system fcrontab. Some code clean and bug fixes. |
| 08/11/2002 | Dev release 2.9.1 is out of the press ! Some bug fixes, the rewrite of the code managing jobs' output, and the ability to run fcron without root's privileges are the main changes since 2.9.0. |
| 03/31/2002 | Dev release 2.9.0 is out ! Several new features, including a new program, fcrondyn, to communicate dynamically with fcron. Fcron's documentation has been ported to Docbook, which results in a very nice html version. |
| 03/09/2002 | Fcron announce only mailing list created You can subscribe using the link above. |
| 12/25/2001 | Dev release 2.1.0 is out ... merry Christmas ! The major improvement in this release is the first support of PAM. However, there are also some bug fixes and minor changes. Take a look at the complete list of changes. |
| 09/02/2001 | Looking for a co-maintainer I probably won't have much time this year to work on fcron because of my studies :(( ... So some help from a co-maintainer would be very appreciated ! Please contact me at if you can help me (or if you want to get more details). |
| 08/23/2001 | Release 2.0.0 is out of the press ! This is the stable release from the development series 1.1.x. You are strongly advised to upgrade from 1.0.x series, as a major security bug has been fixed. Moreover, 2.0.x brings (among other things) a new save system (a lot more extendable), a new file conf (/etc/fcron.conf) where you can set path and default values of fcron (it allows to run several fcron simultaneously on the same system) and ... a FAQ ! :)). Some other changes in fcron's background layout permitted to port fcron to Solaris and OpenBSD. Read the changes file to get a complete list of changes (including bug fixes). |
| 07/10/2001 | Dev release 1.1.1 out of the press ! A security bug fixed (see news below), and some other minor bugs corrected. Several new things in that release : particularly a fcron.conf file, new fcron's options -m (max number of serial job running simultaneously), -n (to create a spool dir), or the support of Vixie crontab format (i.e. * * * * * user cmd). Fcron has also been ported to Solaris and OpenBSD. |
| 07/05/2001 | Security issue in versions earlier than 1.1.1 Those versions contain a bug which can be exploited to truncate some files to zero-length. To avoid that, you should not run "fcrontab -" (i.e. not installing a fcrontab from stdin), especially as root. Version 1.1.1 (which is about to be released) and later include a fix, so you can run "fcrontab -" safely with them. |
| 05/07/2001 | Development version 1.1.0 released ! This release includes the new binary fcrontab save format, which corrects some bugs found in the old one, and is much more extendable. For instance, there is no more need to reinstall the fcrontabs at each fcron's upgrade, which may have lead to informations loss. |
| 05/06/2001 | A new ftp server for fcron ! Thanks to seul.org, fcron now haves a ftp server in the USA, so you can download the source archives, rpms and sign files from there. |
| 04/29/2001 | The source packages are now signed using gpg. You can get both my public key and the sign files on the download page. I'll put my public key on some key servers as soon as possible. |
| 04/15/2001 | Release 1.0.3 is out of the press ! Some minor improvements and a crasher bug fix : a bug in the log part used to make fcron crash with too long messages (some log messages include the shell command, so a too long one in a fcrontab led to a crash). |
| 03/10/2001 | Release 1.0.2 is out of the press ! Some minor improvements (such as the fact that the user for whom a job is run is logged) and bug fixes, particularly the install script's one which used not to put user fcron in group fcron : this has caused some permission errors with fcrontab on some systems. Option bootrun has also been fixed. |
| 03/05/2001 | Fcron (not yet) supported by OpenBSD ... I'm looking for some people to port fcron to OpenBSD : as I don't know this system, I can't do it alone ... If someone could at least help me to do it, it would be great ! Please contact me at if you are ready to do it. |
| 02/26/2001 | Release 1.0.1 is out of the press ! A security hole has been fixed : a normal user used to be able to read root files if root runs a "fcrontab -e -u user". |
| 02/26/2001 | Release 1.0.0 is out of the press ! It finally happened ! I've been announcing it for quite a while, but "it comes when it's ready" :)) . Not a lot of new things since 0.9.5 : some minor bug fixes and improvements. Anyway, FreeBSD systems are supported better. |
| 02/02/2001 | Release 0.9.5 is out of the press ! This release fixes a security bug found in release 0.9.4 (which is, hopefully, not as bad as 0.9.3's one). Moreover, it adds some options ("strict" and "noticenotrun") to get a better control over %-lines. The installation process has also been improved (again :)) ), and an option called "nolog" can help to reduce disk access for laptops. There is also no more need to reinstall the fcrontabs after having changed the uids in /etc/passwd. Note that the first stable version 1.0.0 will be released in a few weeks if no major bug are found in this release : if you find one (a big one, or even a spelling mistake :)) ) please contact me as soon as possible at . |
| 01/01/2001 | Release 0.9.4 is out of the press ! This release fixes the security problem of release 0.9.3 plus various bugs, and add a new kind of line : the "%"-line. The "%"-line replaces the "&runfreq(1)" lines while making it easier and more convenient to use. Take a look at the doc for more details (section : Entries run periodically). (For more details about what have changed, take a look at the CHANGES) We are really close to version 1.0.0 ! And happy new millennium ! |
| 12/11/2000 | Security issue fcron version 0.9.3 contains a bug which allow any user to run tasks as root. To avoid it, you should remove the suid bit from fcrontab and run AS ROOT "fcrontab -z -u user" for all users who have a fcrontab. Please wait for the release 0.9.4 which should arrive soon (a week or 2) to really correct this problem. |
| 11/03/2000 | Release 0.9.3 is out of the press ! This version should be considered as a beta 1.0.0 : some bugs have been fixed from version 0.9.2.1, some checks have been added to avoid infinite loops. Plus, the installation scripts have been improved. The final version 1.0.0 should be the same as 0.9.3, but ... without bugs :)) (if any !). If some people can help me to test fcron thoroughly in order to get a free-from-bug final version quickly, please contact me at . |
| 10/10/2000 | Release 0.9.2.1 is out of the press ! Fcron now uses autoconf (the configure script) to run better on more systems. Plus, the lavg* options can also be used on every systems which defines a getloadavg() function (BSD Unix, etc) (fcron sure still supports the /proc/loadavg file for Linux systems). Moreover, multiple minor modifications have been made and several bugs have been fixed. Read the CHANGES for more details. |
| 09/04/2000 | Release 0.9.1 is out of the press ! Thanks to the new options lavg*, you can now control the execution of a job depending on the 1, 5 and/or 15 minutes system load average. Plus, the mailto option can now be different for each line of a file For more details about what have changed, take a look at the CHANGES. |
| 06/30/2000 | Release 0.9.0 is out of the press ! This version implements a new system of options, which can apply to an individual line or a bloc of lines in a fcrontab file. Those options permit to get a better control over what fcron does while they allow users to make fcron have a specific comportment for some lines. For more details about what is permitted with those options, take a look at fcrontab(5) |
| 06/16/2000 | Release 0.8.2 is out of the press ! Some optimizations and improvements (stability, interactivity). |
| 05/31/2000 | Release 0.8.1 is out of the press ! Fcron now runs on FreeBSD. |
| 05/29/2000 | Site has moved to http://fcron.free.fr |
| 05/11/2000 | New web site. |
| 05/11/2000 | Fcron version 0.8.0 out of the press ! This is the first public release. |