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