Daily Maintenance Scripts

I put my iMac to sleep every night. I have been using Cocktail to run the scripts as I have been told they run early in the morning while the machine is sleeping. In Leopard is this still true? Do I still need to run the scripts or does the machine do it automatically when it wakes up?

I don't think it's necessary. In fact, I never heard of a Mac go down from over-bloated periodics. IMO, too much attention is paid to this feature. It is a carry over from UNIX servers which handle a large volume of traffic. The reason the scripts are scheduled to run in the wee hours are because that is when the server traffic was lowest.
-mj

Similar Messages

Using automater to run the daily maintenance scripts

I like to put my computer to sleep over night but the problem is that when I do that it doesn't run the maintenace scripts. Does anyone know how to do this with automater so that I can quickly run it before I put my powerbook to sleep?

Derek
I have my iMac go to sleep after an hour of non-use so it is shut down all night, usually.
I downloaded the freeware program Anacron which runs the cron daily, weekly and monthly processes automatically when you wake your computer. I never have to worry about maintenance that way.

Maintenance scripts

Hi everyone,
I have two questions that I need help with, both related to the running of maintenance scripts. I downloaded and installed "anacron" the other day. When I check terminal, I notice that the daily maintenance script runs between midnight and 1am each day. I'm pretty sure that the default time for Tiger is somewhere between 3 and 4 am, a time which is assumed to not have much user activity. If the maintenance scripts are now being run around midnight or 1am, times when I am likely to be using the computer, will I notice a system slowdown? I've heard that supplemental maintenance scripts programs, (like Onyx, anacron, macjanitor, etc) are not necessary.
I would uninstall the program, but I've tried searching for the files that the readme says to delete, and I am unable to find them (using the Finder and EasyFind). I am not sure if the program has now replaced Tiger maintenance, and if I delete anacron then the Tiger scripts won't run anymore. Can someone provide me with a way to safely uninstall the program and ensure that the scripts will still run? Thank you.

Hi Louis
I have been running Anacron for several years with no problems. You will not know when it is running most of the time unless you hear your hardrive clicking. Since my computer sleeps through the scheduled times it normally would run, it will run the scrips at times after the time period exceeds the time limit set since last run. Daily scripts every 24 hrs., etc. Anacron will check every hour to test the time limit to see if it needs to run and will run the scripts when needed. Therefore, if your computer was sleeping or off less than 24 hrs. of the time the daily script was set to run or since the last time it was run and you wake it or turn it on 3 days later, the daily script will run approximately 15 minutes past the next hour.
As I said, it has never given me a problem and you won't ever have to worry about the log files getting bloated.
These scripts don't really need to be run that often and some people prefer to use manuel programs such as ONYX to run them on occasion. That's probably more of a personal preference. I choose not to want to think about it and let Anacron do it's thing. If I ever think it may be causing problems, I won't hesitate to remove it. But so far on 3 computers, no problems.
But if you feel the need to uninstall it follow this:
To uninstall Anacron, go to Hard Drive/Library/LaunchDaemons/anacron.plist. Move the file "anacron.plist" to the desktop and restart the computer. Then you can trash anacron.plist file.
Or, search in the Finder or with spotlight for Anacron. You will see the "anacron.plist" file. Delete it and restart the computer. Then you will be able to empty the trash.
I can't really say how much this and permission repair has really helped, but I can tell you that for 3 years I have virtually no problems with my computers and have never had to reinstall the operating system on any of them other than updating or moving to the newer OSX.

Execution of maintenance scripts in Lion

Hi there,
as of the latest update to OS X Lion, the maintenance scripts have ceased to perform automatically. Before, the scripts executed at their proper times (daily, weekly, monthly) and whenever the computer was running (no need to wait for specific time slots). I was able to verify the processes via Maintidget, a widget that monitors script activity and can also be used to execute them manually. As I said, presently there is no more automated script activity - I have to force their execution via Maintidget. Does anyone has an idea why this should be so?

the discussion of the timed maintenance is an old one and does no longer apply.
Sure it does. Those scripts are ancient carry-overs from the early days of Unix and have not been changed much since then.
Also, macjack has a good point. Verify what the widget is telling you. Paste the following command into the Terminal to find out when they last ran:
ls -al /var/log/*.out
The output on my machine is:
Hyperion:~ thomas$ ls -al /var/log/*.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 355773 Feb 20 06:05 /var/log/daily.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1352 Feb 1 06:07 /var/log/monthly.out
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2697 Feb 18 09:31 /var/log/weekly.out

Running Maintenance Scripts for Mac OS 10.5.8 HELP!

I am trying to run the maintenance scripts on my laptop for the first time. I go to Terminal type in "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly" and hit return. A warning message pops up the some data may be lost.... and the the Password prompt comes up. I back up consistently so I just want to run the scripts since it has never been done. However, when I try to type in my password, NOTHING types. I hit return and tried again, but nothing. Can someone please help me figure out what is wrong and if there is any other maintenance I need to do to the system?
Thanks in advance for any help.

You don't need to use any utility, or perform any procedure, to make sure OS X's built-in maintenance tasks have run under OS X 10.5 and later.
OS X 10.5 will run its cron jobs automatically (actually, they are no longer handled by the UNIX facility "cron", they are now handled by a similar facility called "launchd". if that means anything to you) whether you have left your computer on all night or not. You no longer need a utility to run missed maintenance as of OS X 10.5. It will run automatically at the next available opportunity. Actually, this was the case as of OS X 10.4, but a bug kept the maintenance routines from running more than once per restart under OS X 10.4. This was fixed in OS X 10.5
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6552347
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/5
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/launchd.html

Maintenance Scripts?? MacJanitor?

On my G4 iBook running 10.3 I found and used an app called Macjanitor.
Here is the blurb from their site.
Freeware utility to run the system's daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts.
These scripts are normally run between 3am and 5am, and will not be run if you shut off your Mac at night. This can allow log files to grow very large, and prevent system databases from getting backed up.
With MacJanitor, you can run these scripts 'by hand' periodically without having to use the Terminal to keep your Mac OS X machine in top racing form.
Excellent for laptop users and others who shut off or put their Macs to sleep at night.
Supposedly normal set maintenance scripts in OS X are set to run around 3-5am (not sure where you see this) but they will only run if the system is on (of course) and Not asleep. Well I can guarantee my system is alseep as that time !!
I also stumbled across someone commenting on how useless MacJanitor was because they use something called Aancron http://members.cox.net/18james/anacron-tiger.html
Blurb from their site
Anacron runs the periodic daily, weekly and monthly tasks on your Mac even if the machine (a laptop, for example) spends much of its time asleep or switched-off. Anacron silently checks when you reboot and every sixty minutes while the computer is running to see if the various periodic scripts are overdue, and runs them if necessary. The advantage of Anacron over many other solutions to this issue is that it runs as a proper Unix background process, requires no user intervention, and uses the regular periodic scripts, including local additions or modifications.
Sounds like a better solution, but I curious to what others due for running these maintenance scripts?
Has anyone used either of these 2 programs under 10.4?
Opinions and experiences please.

Yes, I use OnyX because it runs them at times I have scheduled it to do so. 10.4.0 or later runs them automatically, if the computer is on and idle at 1AM, which isn't normal for many people so running them with an app can be good if you leave your machine running for days or weeks at a time. That said if you shut down your machine down every night there is no need to because the tasks will be run at boot each morning.

Root crontab no system maintenance scripts

Server: HP DL380, Redhat 4 update 6 (download from linux.oracle.com)
Today I checked crontab and noticed that there are no system maintenance scripts running under root, to e.g. rotate log files, etc. Is this normal, any suggestions please?
Best regards

Check the directories below. Linux cron has directories for hourly, daily, weekly and monthly root scripts where you can drop scripts that you want to run periodically. This is handy if you do not want to maintain a root crontab file.
ll /etc |grep cron
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 329 Sep 28 2004 anacrontab
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 27 15:37 cron.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:08 cron.daily
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 May 12 2007 cron.deny
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 20 2004 cron.hourly
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 12 2007 cron.monthly
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 255 Sep 20 2004 crontab
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 28 2007 cron.weekly

Do I need maintenance scripts ?

I am using Macaroni which runs Unix maintenance script every time I start the computer. At night the cpmputer is shut off. Do I really need to run these scripts with Snow Leopard ?

I know people have weighed in on this before.
sudo periodic all
that is all and no I don't leave mine on, or run them daily, in fact hardly at all. But I do other things to keep the system in top shape.
as long as the utility is certified compatible, you are fine. I think Onyx, SL Cache Cleaner and others can also automatically schedule cron to run next time, I just don't do anything automatic.
Every time you start? or once a day? some scripts are only weekly and monthly anyway.

Cron & missed maintenance scripts

Hiya.
I'm assuming the cron-driven daily/weekly/monthly maintenance scripts are not run if the computer is sleeping.
What (if any) is the easiest way to get caught up on those if missed for a while?
Thanks in advance...

Hi--
They're actually not run by cron any more, but by launchd. So, if the computer is sleeping, but not actually off, they will eventually run. On my PowerBoook, the daily runs about once a week, the weekly every couple of months, and the monthly not often at all.
If you want to run them by hand, you can easily run them in the Terminal (press the "enter" key after each line):
<pre class="command">sudo periodic daily
sudo periodic weekly
sudo periodic monthly</pre>
I think you can run them all like this, too:
<pre class="command">sudo periodic daily weekly monthly</pre>
but I've never run them that way. I either let them run on their own, or run them one at a time.
charlie

Run Maintenance Scripts

On my PM G5 in the past I have successfully run maintenance scripts as follows:
periodic daily weekly monthly
from the terminal window with no problems. Usually when the command line is
executed the sys asks for master password and when it is entered, the program runs
without further messages, only cursor displayed, until it finishes and returns
the command line prompt.
Now suddenly when the command is executed the sys returns:
208-106-62-250:~ richardrkelley$ periodic daily
/usr/sbin/periodic: line 1: /var/log/daily.out: Permission denied
/usr/sbin/periodic: line 106: 370 Broken pipe date
cat: /tmp/periodic.7sKejqD8Mz: Bad file descriptor
cat: /tmp/periodic.7sKejqD8Mz: Bad file descriptor
cat: /tmp/periodic.7sKejqD8Mz: Bad file descriptor
208-106-62-250:~ richardrkelley$
I have run the disk utility and repaired permissions and repaired the disk
with no change. There were some minor repairs done to permissions and disk.
I would appreciate advice as the how to fix this problem and to prevent
future occurrence of same.
Thanks all.

Oops; I had a senior moment.
The correct command to run maint scripts is:
sudo periodic ........
sorry for the dumb question.

Periodic Maintenance Scripts

I read this thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3136865&#3136865
but it is closed so I coldn't post an additional question.
In understand about how the 3 maintenance scripts are supposed to work (Thank you Dr. Smoke!), but for a variety of reasons I need to put my MacBook Pro to sleep at night. Last night, I set the Energy Saver options to wake up at 3:00 AM, having previously checked to see that the daily script was set to run at 3:15. The computer goes to sleep after one hour, so that should have given enough time for the script to run.
This morning the daily script had NOT run, and the Console log is filled with entried like this:
Mar 21 03:30:47 administrators-computer DirectoryService[49]: Active Directory DS Plugin: Kerberos Time Skew Too Large. Check Date/Time!\n
(There are no entries between 3:00 and 3:30). The computer was not connected to the network where the AD lives (that is at work). Also, this morning when I woke the computer up manually, the clock was set at 3:40.
I can continue to run the daily script by hand, but I would rather not. Any help will be appreciated.
Walt

Make your life simpler. There are some excellent alternatives that completely automate running the maintenance scripts for you. You'll find them at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Macaroni - Shareware $8.00
Anacron - Freeware
PseudoAnacron - Freeware
These utilities check if the periodic maintenance scripts were run at their scheduled times, and if not runs them immediately. They assure the scripts are run when your computer is turned on so you needn't worry about scheduling the computer to wake up at a certain time.
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Maintenance scripts question

I was just wondering if the daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts will run overnight if I have the 'puter set to sleep after an hour or so. In other words, will it wake itself to do maintenance? Thanks!

If you would like to forget about the problem then download and install either Macaroni or PseudoAnacron - VersionTracker or MacUpdate. They will automatically run the scripts whenever the computer becomes available if they did not run at their scheduled times.
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.0 is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.6.1 is Leopard compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. The current version, 1.5.1, is Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that presently AppleJack is not compatible with Leopard.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.

Maintenance scripts - not in Leopard?

Are the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance scripts still around in Leopard. If so they do not seem to be running.

David: afraid I'm no expert with Automator, but I do know that you can run Terminal commands from Automator. Check with the folks who know what they're doing in the Automaor forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=749
Or you can go to VersionTracker and see which of the many utilities that will do this for you sounds good to you. Personally, I just use Terminal whenever it occurs to me.
Andrew: it sounds like either something is amiss with the sudoers file, or else you are not a member of the admin group. I would suspect the latter, since it is known that the Leopard install sometimes results in the loss of the admin status for a user. To see if you are a member of the admin group, try the id command. Here's what I get:
NoobiX:~ francine$ id
uid=501(francine) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),102(com.apple.sharepoint.group.2),98(_lpadmin),101(com.apple.s harepoint.group.1),80(admin),501(francine)
As you can see, I am a member of admin (group 80). If you have lost your admin status, see this Apple KB article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306876
It's easy to fix if you have a second user who was also an admin, and that user has retained their status. In that case you can just log in to the remaining admin account, go to System Prefs-Accounts, and click the box to enable admin rights to your regular account.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Maintenance scripts, whats that all about?

In this case I do not actually have a problem, but have heard about on other forums recently something about scripts running in the middle of the night, assuming you leave your computer on that somehow magically keep your Mac working properly. I did a search on the apple forums for this but to no avail.
Anyone know what this is about? Does it actually work, and if so why?
From my perspective it seems like one could cause more problems by always leaving a pc on, due to power failures or surges etc.
Thanks in advance for some insight on this, or links where I could learn more.

Yes, the Keebler elves are busy late at night keeping the computer problem free!
There are three maintenance scripts that Unix runs on a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule. The scripts are run automatically between 3 and 5 am provided the computer is turned on and not sleeping. The scripts perform certain general maintenance chores such as deleting old log and temporary files, rotating the logs, and updating the lookup database.
These maintenance activities prevent log files from growing to unwieldy size which also tends to keep the logs from becoming corrupted. This does help keep OS X running smoother, but they hardly keep OS X completely free of problems. Other efforts are needed:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior. DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption. However, DW is not yet compatible with Intel Macs. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 is Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility called Macaroni that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk 6 (Shareware)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. SuperDuper (Commercial)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - not universal binary.)
7. LaCie SilverKeeper (Freeware - not universal binary)
8. RsynchX 2.1 and PsyncX 2.2.1 (Freeware)
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.

Does OS X automatically run the maintenance scripts?

Can someone tell me if OS X (10.6 or 10.7) automatically runs the Daily, Weekly and Monthly maintenance scripts when my computer is asleep? If not, does OS X cause these scripts to run at the next point when the computer awakes?

Yes, Apple fixed that issue that they would only run in the early AM when most users have their machines off/sleeping and clog the machine up.
No need to worry about having to do anything anymore unless you have a glitchy issue, then the free OnyX will clean your machine's caches out nicely.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/

Daily Maintenance Scripts

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