cron(8) mis-feature with @reboot long after system startup

[Jason Hellenthal]

List,

When using @reboot with cron you expect your proccesses to always start when the system boots up and only when the system boots. But long after the system in question had been booted, my @reboot processes ran again! after a (/etc/rc.d/cron restart). This is normally fine and dandy until one of your @reboot jobs needs to contain a process that purges files "files that are already in use by a running daemon since the system has not rebooted" and becomes hazardous.

So with that said... is there a way we could actually make this run @reboot only ?

Compare the system boottime (kern.boottime) to the current time and if it is greater than ?5 minutes? do not run on any @reboot's ? or add yet another extension @boottime so it does not throw off current functionality ?

Surely I could modify the scripts which do this but I find it unproductive and counter intuitive for the need to explain that @reboot means "When cron is restarted" even though the name means something completely opposite.


Regards & Happy Thanks Giving.
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