ANACRONTAB(5) Anacron Users' Manual ANACRONTAB(5)

NAME
/etc/anacrontab - configuration file for anacron

DESCRIPTION
The file /etc/anacrontab describes the jobs controlled by anacron(8). Its lines can be of three kinds: job-description
lines, environment assignments, or empty lines.

Job-description lines are of one of these two forms:

period delay job-identifier command

@period_name delay job-identify command

The period is specified in days, the delay in minutes. The job-identifier can contain any non-blank character, except
slashes. It is used to identify the job in Anacron messages, and as the name for the job's timestamp file. The command can
be any shell command. The fields can be separated by blank spaces or tabs. The period_name can only be set to monthly at
the present time. This will ensure jobs are only run once a month, no matter the number of days in this month, or the previ‐
ous month.

Environment assignment lines are of the form:

VAR = VALUE

Spaces around VAR are removed. No spaces around VALUE are allowed (unless you want them to be part of the value). The as‐
signment takes effect from the next line to the end of the file, or to the next assignment of the same variable.

Empty lines are either blank lines, line containing white-space only, or lines with white-space followed by a '#' followed
by an arbitrary comment.

You can continue a line onto the next line by ending it with a '\'.