.Dd August 11, 2018 .Dt "AT" 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm at , .Nm batch , .Nm atq , .Nm atrm .Nd queue, examine or delete jobs for later execution .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm at .Op Fl q Ar queue .Op Fl f Ar file .Op Fl mldbv .Ar time .Nm at .Op Fl q Ar queue .Op Fl f Ar file .Op Fl mldbv .Fl t .Sm off .Op Oo Ar CC Oc Ar YY .Ar MM DD hh mm Op . Ar SS .Sm on .Nm at .Fl c Ar job Op Ar job ... .Nm at .Fl l Op Ar job ... .Nm at .Fl l .Fl q Ar queue .Nm at .Fl r Ar job Op Ar job ...
p .Nm atq .Op Fl q Ar queue .Op Fl v
p .Nm atrm .Ar job .Op Ar job ...
p .Nm batch .Op Fl q Ar queue .Op Fl f Ar file .Op Fl mv .Op Ar time .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm at and .Nm batch utilities read commands from standard input or a specified file which are to be executed at a later time, using .Xr sh 1 . l -tag -width indent t Nm at executes commands at a specified time; t Nm atq lists the user's pending jobs, unless the user is the superuser; in that case, everybody's jobs are listed; t Nm atrm deletes jobs; t Nm batch executes commands when system load levels permit; in other words, when the load average drops below _LOADAVG_MX times number of active CPUs, or the value specified in the invocation of .Nm atrun . .El
p The .Nm at utility allows some moderately complex .Ar time specifications. It accepts times of the form .Ar HHMM or .Ar HH:MM to run a job at a specific time of day. (If that time is already past, the next day is assumed.) As an alternative, the following keywords may be specified: .Em midnight , .Em noon , or .Em teatime (4pm) and time-of-day may be suffixed with .Em AM or .Em PM for running in the morning or the evening. The day on which the job is to be run may also be specified by giving a date in the form .Ar \%month-name day with an optional .Ar year , or giving a date of the forms .Ar DD.MM.YYYY , .Ar DD.MM.YY , .Ar MM/DD/YYYY , .Ar MM/DD/YY , .Ar MMDDYYYY , or .Ar MMDDYY . The specification of a date must follow the specification of the time of day. Time can also be specified as: .Op Em now .Em + Ar count \%time-units , where the time-units can be .Em minutes , .Em hours , .Em days , .Em weeks , .Em months or .Em years and .Nm may be told to run the job today by suffixing the time with .Em today and to run the job tomorrow by suffixing the time with .Em tomorrow .
p For example, to run a job at 4pm three days from now, use .Nm at Ar 4pm + 3 days , to run a job at 10:00am on July 31, use .Nm at Ar 10am Jul 31 and to run a job at 1am tomorrow, use .Nm at Ar 1am tomorrow .
p The .Nm at utility also supports the .Tn POSIX time format (see .Fl t option).
p For both .Nm and .Nm batch , commands are read from standard input or the file specified with the .Fl f option and executed. The working directory, the environment (except for the variables .Ev TERM , .Ev TERMCAP , .Ev DISPLAY and .Em _ ) and the .Ar umask are retained from the time of invocation. An .Nm or .Nm batch command invoked from a .Xr su 1 shell will retain the current userid. The user will be mailed standard error and standard output from his commands, if any. Mail will be sent using the command .Xr sendmail 8 . If .Nm is executed from a .Xr su 1 shell, the owner of the login shell will receive the mail.
p The superuser may use these commands in any case. For other users, permission to use .Nm is determined by the files
p If the file
a _PERM_PATH/at.allow exists, only usernames mentioned in it are allowed to use .Nm . In these two files, a user is considered to be listed only if the user name has no blank or other characters before it on its line and a newline character immediately after the name, even at the end of the file. Other lines are ignored and may be used for comments.
p If
a _PERM_PATH/at.allow does not exist,
a _PERM_PATH/at.deny is checked, every username not mentioned in it is then allowed to use .Nm .
p If neither exists, only the superuser is allowed use of .Nm . This is the default configuration. .Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES Note that .Nm is implemented through the .Xr cron 8 daemon by calling .Xr atrun 8 every five minutes. This implies that the granularity of .Nm might not be optimal for every deployment. If a finer granularity is desired, the
a /etc/cron.d/at file can be edited and will be read by the system crontab, from which the .Ev SHELL and .Ev PATH environment variables are inherited. .Sh OPTIONS l -tag -width indent t Fl q Ar queue Use the specified queue. A queue designation consists of a single letter; valid queue designations range from .Ar a to .Ar z and .Ar A to .Ar Z . The .Ar _DEFAULT_AT_QUEUE queue is the default for .Nm and the .Ar _DEFAULT_BATCH_QUEUE queue for .Nm batch . Queues with higher letters run with increased niceness. If a job is submitted to a queue designated with an uppercase letter, it is treated as if it had been submitted to batch at that time. If .Nm atq is given a specific queue, it will only show jobs pending in that queue. t Fl m Send mail to the user when the job has completed even if there was no output. t Fl f Ar file Read the job from .Ar file rather than standard input. t Fl l With no arguments, list all jobs for the invoking user. If one or more job numbers are given, list only those jobs. t Fl d Is an alias for .Nm atrm (this option is deprecated; use .Fl r instead). t Fl b Is an alias for .Nm batch . t Fl v For .Nm atq , shows completed but not yet deleted jobs in the queue; otherwise shows the time the job will be executed. t Fl c Cat the jobs listed on the command line to standard output. t Fl r Remove the specified jobs. t Fl t Specify the job time using the \*[Px] time format. The argument should be in the form .Sm off .Op Oo Ar CC Oc Ar YY .Ar MM DD hh mm Op . Ar SS .Sm on where each pair of letters represents the following:
p l -tag -width indent -compact -offset indent t Ar CC The first two digits of the year (the century). t Ar YY The second two digits of the year. t Ar MM The month of the year, from 1 to 12. t Ar DD the day of the month, from 1 to 31. t Ar hh The hour of the day, from 0 to 23. t Ar mm The minute of the hour, from 0 to 59. t Ar SS The second of the minute, from 0 to 60. .El
p If the .Ar CC and .Ar YY letter pairs are not specified, the values default to the current year. If the .Ar SS letter pair is not specified, the value defaults to 0. .El .Sh FILES l -tag -width _ATJOB_DIR/_LOCKFILE -compact t Pa _ATJOB_DIR directory containing job files t Pa _ATSPOOL_DIR directory containing output spool files t Pa /var/run/utx.active login records t Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow allow permission control t Pa _PERM_PATH/at.deny deny permission control t Pa _ATJOB_DIR/_LOCKFILE job-creation lock file .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr nice 1 , .Xr sh 1 , .Xr umask 2 , .Xr atrun 8 , .Xr cron 8 , .Xr sendmail 8 .Sh AUTHORS .An -nosplit At was mostly written by .An Thomas Koenig Aq Mt ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de . The time parsing routines are by .An David Parsons Aq Mt orc@pell.chi.il.us , with minor enhancements by .An Joe Halpin Aq Mt joe.halpin@attbi.com . .Sh BUGS If the file
a /var/run/utx.active is not available or corrupted, or if the user is not logged on at the time .Nm is invoked, the mail is sent to the userid found in the environment variable .Ev LOGNAME . If that is undefined or empty, the current userid is assumed.
p The .Nm at and .Nm batch utilities as presently implemented are not suitable when users are competing for resources. If this is the case, another batch system such as .Em nqs may be more suitable.
p Specifying a date past 2038 may not work on some systems.