Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual (G06.27+, H06.04+)
File Format Reference Pages .proto(4)
NAME
.proto -Defines the environment for a job to be processed by an at or batch command
SYNOPSIS
/var/adm/cron/.proto
DESCRIPTION
This file contains a set of shell commands that are added to the end of each at or batch job file to
create an environment for the job. This set of commands is defined by the site; a prototype is
provided by Compaq.
When a job is submitted to an at or batch queue, the job is constructed as a shell script. The at
or batch command places the job file in /var/spool/cron/atjobs
and the following steps occur:
1. The at or batch process adds a header describing the job:
: at job Defines an at job
: batch job Defines a batch job
Jobs submitted to any queue other than queue a are always given a batch job header.
2. The process adds a set of shell commands to create an environment for the job identical
to the current shell environment.
3. The process then copies text from the /var/adm/cron/.proto file into the job file. The
following special variables can be used in the /var/adm/cron/.proto file to help define or
modify the shell environment for the job:
$d Replace with the pathname of the current working directory.
$l Replace with the current file size limit.
$m Replace with the current value of umask.
$t Replace with the time at which the job should be run, expressed as
seconds since the Epoch of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and
prefixed by a colon (:).
$< Replace with text read by the process from the standard input file (that
is, with the commands to be run in the job).
When this job is dispatched by cron for execution, a new shell is started to execute this script.
EXAMPLES
When the following at command is given, a job file is created in /var/spool/cron/atjobs with the
name TCS.ALI.1008378001.a:
Whit10:/home/ali: at -f /home/arindam/test.sh 5 pm Friday
job TCS.ALI.1008378001.a at Fri Dec 14 17:00:00 2001
Whit10:/home/ali:
The file /var/adm/cron/.proto contains attribution comments and the following three shell com-
mands:
cd $d
ulimit $l
umask $m
The file TCS.ALI.1008378001.a contains:
: at job
527188-004 Hewlett-Packard Company 11−31