What is hcron?

hcron is a periodic command scheduler along the lines of the ubiquitous cron–but with unique features. hcron scales easily from a handful of events to many thousands:

What Sets hcron Apart?

Many features are unique to hcron:

• events are named and organized hierarchically
• events are defined individually (by file)
• key=value based event definition
• events are composable (include directive)
• template events (template_event field)
• event chaining of one or more events (next_event and failover_event fields)
• powerful and concise variable manipulation
• events do not get clobbered during system reinstalls
• network-oriented rather than host-oriented
• event tree document generation tool (see doc)
• on-demand activation of existing events

Comparing cron/crontab to hcron

crontab entry:

# hello_dolly
0 11,21 * 2-12/2 * ssh exechost.abc.xyz 'echo "hello dolly" > /tmp/hello_dolly'; mail -s done Mister.Big@mailhost.abc.xyz

hcron event file (called hello_dolly):

as_user=
host=exechost.abc.xyz
command=echo "hello dolly" > /tmp/hello_dolly
notify_email=Mister.Big@mailhost.abc.xyz
notify_message=done
when_month=2-12/2
when_day=*
when_hour=11,21
when_minute=0
when_dow=2

Using hcron means never needing to check the crontab man page to remember the field order. But there is more to hcron than a key=value approach. See the documentation for more.