non-stop disk activity

[Per Bothner]

Vladimir G. Ivanovic wrote:

> Not all Unix systems have a file access monitor, so if cron is to have a
> single implementation across Unices, then it won't be able to use fam.

But there is no reason why cron needs to have a single implementation 
across Unices.  Less-featured Unixes can use polling, as before.
One should be able to use autoconf to check for FAM.

The real problem is that (vixie-) cron version 3 is from 1994, and
has only gotten the minimum security fixes since then.  There is a
project "GNU cron" to write a replacement, but doesn't seem to have
had any activity for about 2 years.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per at bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/