uudemon.cleanu Command

Purpose

Cleans up BNU spooling directories and log files.

Syntax

uudemon.cleanu

Description

The /usr/sbin/uucp/uudemon.cleanu command is a shell script that cleans up the Basic Networking Utilities (BNU) spooling directories and log files. The command deletes files in the spooling directories that are as old as, or older than, a specified number of days, and then removes empty spooling directories.

The uudemon.cleanu command also updates archived log files by removing log information more than three days old. The command removes log files for individual computers from the var/spool/uucp/.Log directory, merges them, and places them in the var/spool/uucp/.Old directory, which contains old log information.

After performing the cleanup operations, the uudemon.cleanu command mails the uucp login ID a summary of the status information gathered during the current day.

Instruct the cron daemon to run the uudemon.cleanu command daily, weekly, or at longer intervals, depending on the amount of transactions the uucico and uuxqt daemons perform on the local system.

To run this command automatically, remove the comment character (#) at the beginning of the uudemon.cleanu command line in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/uucp file.
Note: The uudemon.cleanu command is not usually entered on the command line but is instead executed by the cron daemon.

Example

To run the uudemon.cleanu procedure automatically, edit the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/uucp file and uncomment the uudemon.cleanu line. Change:

# 45 23 * * * /usr/bin/sh -c
 "/usr/sbin/uucp/uudemon.cleanu > /dev/null"

to:

45 23 * * * /usr/bin/sh -c "/usr/sbin/uucp/uudemon.cleanu > /dev/null"

The 45 notation represents minutes, the 23 notation represents hours based on the 24-hour clock, and the three asterisks (* * *) are placeholders representing the day of the month, the month of the year, and the day of the week, respectively. This line therefore instructs the cron daemon to run the uudemon.cleanu shell procedure at 45 minutes after hour 2300-that is, at 11:45 p.m.

Note:
  1. These run intervals are defaults. By altering them, you can change the times at which the cron daemon executes the uudemon.cleanu command so that they fit the needs of your site.
  2. The system allots the BNU program a specified amount of storage space for any one particular log file; the number of blocks is determined by the default ulimit value. If the uudemon.cleanu command fails to execute because the ulimit value is set too low for the requirements of the local system, delete the uudemon.cleanu command line (shown previously) from the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/uucp file and add the following entry to the root crontabs file, /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root: 
    45 23 * * * ulimit 5000; /usr/bin/su uucp
 -c "/usr/sbin/uucp/uudemon.cleanu > /dev/null"
    Put the text on one line when entering it in the root crontabs file.

Files

Item Description
/usr/sbin/uucp/uudemon.cleanu Contains the uudemon.cleanu command.
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/uucp Schedules BNU jobs, including the uudemon.cleanu command, for the cron daemon.
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root Schedules root user jobs for the cron daemon.
/var/spool/uucp/.Log /* Contains the BNU program log files.