On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 14:43 -0400, Harish Narayanan wrote:

> So there you have it. It runs updatedb (or tries to) at 4:02 AM, from the second line. You can change these to more convenient times, like when the computer is actually on (and when you're not sitting at it). On a related note, I tried asking about something similar[1] -- I wanted to move this over to an equivalent "anacrontab" -- but didn't know how. If someone has any ideas, I'd appreciate the help.

> 
> [1] Question 3 on http://listserv.fnal.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0508&L=scientific-linux-users&T=0&F=&S=&P=13080

You need to start the service anacron.  Run system-config-services and
check the box for anacron (if it is not checked) and save your changes.

Then the file /etc/anacrontab which contains 

---------------------------------------------------------------
# /etc/anacrontab: configuration file for anacron

# See anacron(8) and anacrontab(5) for details.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root

1       65      cron.daily              run-parts /etc/cron.daily
7       70      cron.weekly             run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
30      75      cron.monthly            run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
---------------------------------------------------------------

should take effect  The cron.daily  line has arguments 1   65   which
means check if it has not been done in the past 1 day(s) and then wait
65 minutes and do it.  I believe this is executed when you boot so the
cron.daily scripts will be run after 65 minutes if they have not been
run in the past day.