10 ms·

Why would you bother with this when you have systemd-timers with times in English? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers https://wiki.archlinux.org/t

by kd913 5y ago

Why would you bother with this when you have systemd-timers with times in English? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers

0xb0565e487 5y ago
I have 0 knowledge of systemd-timers. Is it fully interoperable with cron and available on every system that has cron? If not, I think your comment is pretty irrelevant since there are still scenarios where you'd need to use cron.
- kd913 5y ago
  It's on every system that has systemd which is basically on every commercial production Linux system. I can use them as a user and non-root, I get to use journalctl and systemd status to check if it ran. The timers run independently of others and the timers are in English. If you are using Devuan or something weird like that then sure, but nearly every other way I find systemd-timers better especially for debugability.
  - macintux 5y ago
    There's a vast world outside commercial Linux systems. BSD, macOS, Solaris (I assume Solaris still exists), etc. And Debian isn't exactly "weird".
    - nick__m 5y ago
      Debian use systemd, Devuan is the reactionary fork of Debian without systemd.
      - macintux 5y ago
        Ah, thanks, I assumed that was autocorrect madness.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        I thought Debian supported system or sysv init; did they remove the latter more recently?
        kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
        They had about a 5 year "democratic" scream fest that ended when they decided to switch to SystemD (over upstart and other options) starting in Debian Jessie (roughly when I switched off Debian because I couldn't stand the shout matches anymore, not because I had a pony in the race). https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426 https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426 So since April 25th, 2015. The logic went, we didn't like PulseAudio, therefore we don't like the developer (Lennart Poettering). Lennart Poettering also made SystemD, therefore we automatically hate that. The main complaint was that it relied on DBUS. Most of them switched to Gentoo because it supported OpenRC, ironically also reliant on DBUS. EDIT: I found some additional strange results when trying to find the spelling of his name: https://www.zdnet.com/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torvalds-rant/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torv... https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/10/28/meet-your-nsa-handler-lennart-poettering/ https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/10/28/meet-your-nsa-han... https://groups.google.com/g/comp.misc/c/wnFJ3-QDKdE https://groups.google.com/g/comp.misc/c/wnFJ3-QDKdE Looks like they believe SystemD is an attempt by the NSA to infiltrate and spy on Linux users.
        yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        That's all unrelated to my point; per your first link: > The sysvinit init system is still available in "Jessie". I was asking if this had since changed, since last I'd paid attention you could in fact run Debian without systemd.
        kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
        Okay bad link. Apparently the jessie support for sysvinit is mostly because the service files were still there. It seems they didn't have any intention of maintaining those services, and other software that requires the use of it would simply fail to work if you installed sysvinit because much of it required the usage of systemd and/or dbus. https://lwn.net/Articles/585319/ https://lwn.net/Articles/585319/ https://www.itwire.com/open-source/debian-revisits-systemd-vote,-relaxes-things-a-bit.html https://www.itwire.com/open-source/debian-revisits-systemd-v... So, I guess I assumed that since there was hysteria around systemd becoming the default and the non-systemd users needing to create a new fork (Devuan) to get SystemD out of their Debian installs, it might have been to be compatible with other software: https://www.devuan.org/os/announce/ https://www.devuan.org/os/announce/ "As many of you might know already, the Init GR Debian vote promoted by Ian Jackson wasn't useful to protect Debian's legacy and its users from the systemd avalanche. This situation prospects a lock in systemd dependencies which is de-facto threatening freedom of development and has serious consequences for Debian, its upstream and its downstream." Choice 2:B is also the "new" decision to expand and allow exploring alternatives to SystemD in 2019, which is a change I was unaware of as well: https://lwn.net/Articles/804254/ https://lwn.net/Articles/804254/ https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/vote_002#textb https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/vote_002#textb I'm sure this won't satisfy you, but I'm done. I've followed this for far too long as it is, and I don't need to rehash more dumb mailing list arguments.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      > I assume Solaris still exists Technically yes, but I expect that Illumos is more relevant
  - generalizations 5y ago
    > basically on every commercial production Linux system That comment rubs me the wrong way. To mirror the sibling, there's a lot outside the Linux+SystemD world - even your firewall probably doesn't use systemd (or linux for that matter, if you're in a professional environment), and neither does Alpine, that runs docker containers. (And love it or hate it, docker is in a lot of commercial production stuff.) "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
    - ossusermivami 5y ago
      bu you don't plan to distribute crons to machine that you don't control? why would you care ?
      - generalizations 5y ago
        A) I was responding to the implication that Linux+Systemd is the combination used in 'basically every commercial production system', which discounted the entire world of a) BSD and b) not-systemd. That wasn't a cron-specific comment on my part. B) I do control my (professional environment) firewall. OpenBSD+PF is an amazing firewall combo, and the other common firewall, pfsense, uses FreeBSD. Neither use Linux; neither use systemd.
encoderer 5y ago
Cron expressions are used everywhere.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  To flesh this out more: Cron expressions are not just used on Unix boxes for actual cron; I use them most for scheduling gitlab CI jobs, IIRC Jenkins uses them, etc.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    For better or worse the crontab syntax is the de facto way to match instants of time. And on that count it’s pretty darn good all things considered.
Aeolun 5y ago
> Timers are systemd unit files whose name ends in .timer that control .service files or events. Well, for one thing, here are 4 completely new concepts that I don’t particularly want to bother with. I just want to run a command every minute. I don’t want to learn about unit, timer or event files and the differences between them.
- Spivak 5y ago
  You had to learn about cron and enough about your service manager to make sure the daemon was running. It’s the exact same thing but in ini files and way way more configurable and introspectable.
  - musingsole 5y ago
    They're similar, but systemd timers are at least an order of magnitude more complex than cronjobs. Sure, you have to learn the system's particulars and both systems have corner cases that seem to pop up in even the simplest of uses ...however, cronjobs are a single entry in a single application. Systemd is a system backbone. Using it for everything when you know how to use it is straightforward. Almost no one knows how to use it.
    - omneity 5y ago
      This is a self-reinforcing myth. Not as many people know how to use it because they keep hearing this bashing. But for a beginner systemd is quite accessible (if you don’t come at it with init.d baggage), and its advanced features almost always end up being relevant for its basic tasks. I had to figure it out from scratch on a server running live, and I’m alive to tell the tale.
      - musingsole 5y ago
        > But for a beginner systemd is quite accessible hahahaha good joke, right? I'm not really arguing that systemd is too complex but more so nitpicking your use of 'beginner'. If you believe systemd is accessible to a beginner...we're working from 2 very different pictures of what a novice computer user or even a novice programmer is capable of. Crontab is an application installed by default on most linux flavors and has a multi-decade history of simplistic and complex usecases. Systemd is the building blocks of the entire operating system. How in the world is that beginner accessible?
avnigo 5y ago
I understood systemd-timers require you to set up a service unit (please correct me if I'm wrong), so I find it easier and quicker to just add a line to the cron table, especially for a quick and dirty script I want run every so often. I would set up a service for something that needs to be more robust and complex.
raxxorrax 5y ago
A lot of scheduling APIs use the syntax. Most of my favorite ones for that matter because the Cron syntax is quite awesome. A bit error prone perhaps, but that is why you have crontab.guru.

by kd913 5y ago

Why would you bother with this when you have systemd-timers with times in English? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers

0xb0565e487 5y ago

I have 0 knowledge of systemd-timers. Is it fully interoperable with cron and available on every system that has cron? If not, I think your comment is pretty irrelevant since there are still scenarios where you'd need to use cron.

kd913 5y ago
It's on every system that has systemd which is basically on every commercial production Linux system. I can use them as a user and non-root, I get to use journalctl and systemd status to check if it ran. The timers run independently of others and the timers are in English. If you are using Devuan or something weird like that then sure, but nearly every other way I find systemd-timers better especially for debugability.
- macintux 5y ago
  There's a vast world outside commercial Linux systems. BSD, macOS, Solaris (I assume Solaris still exists), etc. And Debian isn't exactly "weird".
  - nick__m 5y ago
    Debian use systemd, Devuan is the reactionary fork of Debian without systemd.
    - macintux 5y ago
      Ah, thanks, I assumed that was autocorrect madness.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      I thought Debian supported system or sysv init; did they remove the latter more recently?
      - kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
        They had about a 5 year "democratic" scream fest that ended when they decided to switch to SystemD (over upstart and other options) starting in Debian Jessie (roughly when I switched off Debian because I couldn't stand the shout matches anymore, not because I had a pony in the race). https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426 https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426 So since April 25th, 2015. The logic went, we didn't like PulseAudio, therefore we don't like the developer (Lennart Poettering). Lennart Poettering also made SystemD, therefore we automatically hate that. The main complaint was that it relied on DBUS. Most of them switched to Gentoo because it supported OpenRC, ironically also reliant on DBUS. EDIT: I found some additional strange results when trying to find the spelling of his name: https://www.zdnet.com/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torvalds-rant/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/lennart-poetterings-linus-torv... https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/10/28/meet-your-nsa-handler-lennart-poettering/ https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/10/28/meet-your-nsa-han... https://groups.google.com/g/comp.misc/c/wnFJ3-QDKdE https://groups.google.com/g/comp.misc/c/wnFJ3-QDKdE Looks like they believe SystemD is an attempt by the NSA to infiltrate and spy on Linux users.
        yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        That's all unrelated to my point; per your first link: > The sysvinit init system is still available in "Jessie". I was asking if this had since changed, since last I'd paid attention you could in fact run Debian without systemd.
        kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
        Okay bad link. Apparently the jessie support for sysvinit is mostly because the service files were still there. It seems they didn't have any intention of maintaining those services, and other software that requires the use of it would simply fail to work if you installed sysvinit because much of it required the usage of systemd and/or dbus. https://lwn.net/Articles/585319/ https://lwn.net/Articles/585319/ https://www.itwire.com/open-source/debian-revisits-systemd-vote,-relaxes-things-a-bit.html https://www.itwire.com/open-source/debian-revisits-systemd-v... So, I guess I assumed that since there was hysteria around systemd becoming the default and the non-systemd users needing to create a new fork (Devuan) to get SystemD out of their Debian installs, it might have been to be compatible with other software: https://www.devuan.org/os/announce/ https://www.devuan.org/os/announce/ "As many of you might know already, the Init GR Debian vote promoted by Ian Jackson wasn't useful to protect Debian's legacy and its users from the systemd avalanche. This situation prospects a lock in systemd dependencies which is de-facto threatening freedom of development and has serious consequences for Debian, its upstream and its downstream." Choice 2:B is also the "new" decision to expand and allow exploring alternatives to SystemD in 2019, which is a change I was unaware of as well: https://lwn.net/Articles/804254/ https://lwn.net/Articles/804254/ https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/vote_002#textb https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/vote_002#textb I'm sure this won't satisfy you, but I'm done. I've followed this for far too long as it is, and I don't need to rehash more dumb mailing list arguments.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    > I assume Solaris still exists Technically yes, but I expect that Illumos is more relevant
- generalizations 5y ago
  > basically on every commercial production Linux system That comment rubs me the wrong way. To mirror the sibling, there's a lot outside the Linux+SystemD world - even your firewall probably doesn't use systemd (or linux for that matter, if you're in a professional environment), and neither does Alpine, that runs docker containers. (And love it or hate it, docker is in a lot of commercial production stuff.) "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  - ossusermivami 5y ago
    bu you don't plan to distribute crons to machine that you don't control? why would you care ?
    - generalizations 5y ago
      A) I was responding to the implication that Linux+Systemd is the combination used in 'basically every commercial production system', which discounted the entire world of a) BSD and b) not-systemd. That wasn't a cron-specific comment on my part. B) I do control my (professional environment) firewall. OpenBSD+PF is an amazing firewall combo, and the other common firewall, pfsense, uses FreeBSD. Neither use Linux; neither use systemd.

encoderer 5y ago

Cron expressions are used everywhere.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
To flesh this out more: Cron expressions are not just used on Unix boxes for actual cron; I use them most for scheduling gitlab CI jobs, IIRC Jenkins uses them, etc.
- Spivak 5y ago
  For better or worse the crontab syntax is the de facto way to match instants of time. And on that count it’s pretty darn good all things considered.

Aeolun 5y ago

> Timers are systemd unit files whose name ends in .timer that control .service files or events. Well, for one thing, here are 4 completely new concepts that I don’t particularly want to bother with. I just want to run a command every minute. I don’t want to learn about unit, timer or event files and the differences between them.

Spivak 5y ago
You had to learn about cron and enough about your service manager to make sure the daemon was running. It’s the exact same thing but in ini files and way way more configurable and introspectable.
- musingsole 5y ago
  They're similar, but systemd timers are at least an order of magnitude more complex than cronjobs. Sure, you have to learn the system's particulars and both systems have corner cases that seem to pop up in even the simplest of uses ...however, cronjobs are a single entry in a single application. Systemd is a system backbone. Using it for everything when you know how to use it is straightforward. Almost no one knows how to use it.
  - omneity 5y ago
    This is a self-reinforcing myth. Not as many people know how to use it because they keep hearing this bashing. But for a beginner systemd is quite accessible (if you don’t come at it with init.d baggage), and its advanced features almost always end up being relevant for its basic tasks. I had to figure it out from scratch on a server running live, and I’m alive to tell the tale.
    - musingsole 5y ago
      > But for a beginner systemd is quite accessible hahahaha good joke, right? I'm not really arguing that systemd is too complex but more so nitpicking your use of 'beginner'. If you believe systemd is accessible to a beginner...we're working from 2 very different pictures of what a novice computer user or even a novice programmer is capable of. Crontab is an application installed by default on most linux flavors and has a multi-decade history of simplistic and complex usecases. Systemd is the building blocks of the entire operating system. How in the world is that beginner accessible?

avnigo 5y ago

I understood systemd-timers require you to set up a service unit (please correct me if I'm wrong), so I find it easier and quicker to just add a line to the cron table, especially for a quick and dirty script I want run every so often. I would set up a service for something that needs to be more robust and complex.

raxxorrax 5y ago

A lot of scheduling APIs use the syntax. Most of my favorite ones for that matter because the Cron syntax is quite awesome. A bit error prone perhaps, but that is why you have crontab.guru.