## Configure the scripts that run periodically to perform various system maintenance tasks ##

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[Reviewer](technical_reviewers.html): _name_ _[[contact]]_ _[[BSD_flavour]]_

[Reviewer](technical_reviewers.html): _name_ _[[contact]]_ _[[BSD_flavour]]_

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### Concept ###

BSD systems provide many scripts that are used to maintain and verify
the integrity of the system. Be able to
locate and run these scripts manually as required as well as configure
which scripts run daily, weekly and monthly on each BSD system.


### Introduction ###

The BSD systems provide scripts for verifying integrity and security and 
for providing daily, weekly, and monthly system maintenance and reports.
These are started via cron. (Cron is covered in section [[Configure_an_action_to_be_scheduled_by_cron(8)]].)

OpenBSD and NetBSD use shell scripts called /etc/daily, /etc/weekly, and /etc/monthly.

FreeBSD and DragonFly use a tool called 'periodic' that runs several other scripts found in
/etc/periodic/daily, /etc/periodic/weekly, and /etc/periodic/monthly directories.

The output of the maintenance jobs is saved to /var/log/daily.out, /var/log/weekly.out,
and /var/log/monthly.out.

Also, the same reports are emailed to "root" (by default).

TODO: is the output of freebsd and dragonfly saved by default?

TODO: cover basics of what each does

TODO: mention configuration files

TODO: point to docs for more details

TODO: mention security script(s)


On OpenBSD, the daily job runs at 1:30 a.m. and the weekly job at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday.

On NetBSD, the daily job runs at 3:15 a.m. and the weekly job runs at 4:30 a.m.

On FreeBSD and DragonFly, the daily jobs run at 3:01 a.m. and the weekly job runs at 4:15 a.m.

The BSDs run the monthly job at 5:30 a.m. on the first day of the month.

TODO: note about no monthly by default on NetBSD.

### Examples ###




### Practice Exercises ###


### More information ###

periodic.conf(5) and periodic(8) on Dragonfly and FreeBSD; security.conf(5),
daily.conf(5), weekly.conf(5), and monthly.conf(5) on NetBSD; daily(8),
weekly(8), and monthly(8) on OpenBSD


