Bug 38898

Summary: Cron handling tar vs. deb
Product: Koha Reporter: Alexander Wagner <alexander.wagner>
Component: DocumentationAssignee: Bugs List <koha-bugs>
Status: Needs documenting --- QA Contact: Testopia <testopia>
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P5 - low CC: philip.orr
Version: Main   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
GIT URL: Change sponsored?: ---
Patch complexity: --- Documentation contact:
Documentation submission: Text to go in the release notes:
Version(s) released in:
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Description Alexander Wagner 2025-01-15 09:32:15 UTC
The Koha Manual details on cron jobs required by Koha and also refers to `crontab.example` as an example how to set it up:

https://koha-community.org/manual/latest/en/html/cron_jobs.html

As a newbie I had the impression that I should dive into all those jobs and devise a suitable `crontab` for my instance based on the example file provided.

This seems to be correct procedure if Koha gets installed from the source tar balls.

Once Koha is installed from pre-complied (deb-)packages, however, a number of cron jobs are added to the system `cron` automatically by means of crontabs named `koha-common`, placed into the respective system paths `/etc/cron.*/` and one might end up with the same job more than once and probably confusing behaviour.

- It would be helpful to newbies to point out the automatic setup once deb's are used
- It would also be helpful to mark jobs already setup automagically in the subsequent detailed documentation of the jobs.



As of 24.11 these jobs seem to be added via deb and `koha-common` crontabs (section headings refer to the path they get added).

## cron.hourly

build_holds_queue
automatic_checkin

## cron.d

process_message_queue

## cron.daily

automatic_renewals
automatic_checkin
expire_recalls
overdue_recalls
fines
overdue_notices
serialsUpdate
membership_expiry
cancel_expired_holds
cleanup_database
auto_unsuspend_holds
merge_authorities
plugins_nightly

## cron.monthly

share_usage_with_koha_community