Notes from Jacob K.:

periodic.conf: periodic job configuration information. Periodic.conf contains a description of how daily, weekly, and monthly system maintenance jobs should run. It resides in the /etc/defaults directory and parts may be overridden by the /etc/periodic.conf.local file. See periodic.conf for a list of possible variables.

periodic: run periodic system functions


files:

/etc/defaults/periodic.conf - default configuration file, contains all default variables and values

/etc/periodic.conf - usual system specific variable override file

/etc/periodic.conf/local - an additional override file, useful when /etc/periodic.conf is shared or distributed.

Run the periodic scripts manually:

Each argument (daily, weekly, etc) is a directory in /etc/periodic with scripts to be run

periodic daily

periodic weekly

periodic monthly

periodic security