Common Administrative Tasks That Can Be Automated Using Either The At or Cron Daemons - Coursework Example

The paper "Common Administrative Tasks That Can Be Automated Using Either The At or Cron Daemons" is a brilliant example of coursework on information technology. In operating systems that are completely multitasking, a program that does not involve the interactive user directly but rather executes in the background is known as a daemon. We shall look at the at and the cron daemons. (atd and crond). The atd are daemon used for commands intended for one particular time execution in future the cron daemons are used for execution that recurs.eg every day, once in a month, etc. (Raphael, 2013)

At and crons are used to perform various administrative services which include log file management and file cleanup services.
We shall start by looking into log file rotation, this a technique used to deal with generic issue log file growth. It involves moving of log file to another file name in a regular manner and starting again with a log file, which is empty. After some time the old file gets discarded. This is very useful to check the size of log files because it is very hard to manipulate large files.
Secondly, crons can be used for the distribution of files in a network mostly, configuration files. This helps to ensure that data is not lost during sending and receiving of files process. Ats and crons are used in file system cleaning. The temporary directory and all subdirectories belonging to it are cleaned out automatically whenever there is a system reboot. Also, the removal of files that have stayed for a considerable amount of time without use. Finally, the crons and are used to perform administrative jobs that are done regularly be it weekly monthly or daily.
Administrative tasks on the windows system are achieved through some common tools like the adsizer.exe, which helps in the estimation of the size of the directory. The delrp.exe is used to delete directories/files and associated points of reparse if any. These and other tools are used to achieve administrative tasks in the windows system.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
One of the major advantages of using windows systems to automate these tasks is that these tools for automation are readily available on the internet and they do not require much technical knowledge like the daemons. It is also easier to export information to databases and share it with colleagues.
Disadvantages
One of the major demerit to note is that these tools come with costs, they have to be purchased. It is also possible to cause havoc when installing scripts. Read More