m2cron

A modern replacement for GNU Mcron and older cron daemons.

A cron daemon has been in all the various UNIX implementations since the beginning, and was FOSSʼd by Paul Vixie who thereby provided the de-facto standard. These programs run other programs at regular intervals, without operator intervention.

GNU Mcron first appeared around 2003, and served the dual aims of providing a full Vixie cron replacement, and giving users new freedoms in determining when jobs run. The GUIX project used GNU Mcron heavily since its inception, and the GNU Mcron project was donated to the GUIX project in 2017, who now look after it.

M2cron throws off the Vixie compatibility, increases the potential to control when jobs run, and provides for better real-time interaction with the daemon, which can run as a root process so that regular users can leave jobs to run once their sessions have ended.