atd(8)

atd8

Run jobs queued for later execution

Usage

atd [-l load_avg] [-b batch_interval] [-d] [-f] [-s]

Overview

atd runs jobs queued by at(1).

Options

-l

Specifies a limiting load factor, over which batch jobs should not be run, instead of the compile-time choice of 0.8. For an SMP system with n CPUs, you will probably want to set this higher than n-1.

-b

Specify the minimum interval in seconds between the start of two batch jobs (60 default).

-d

Debug; print error messages to standard error instead of using syslog(3). This option also implies -f.

-f

Run atd in the foreground.

-s

Process the at/batch queue only once. This is primarily of use for compatibility with old versions of at; atd -s is equivalent to the old atrun command.

Warning

atd won't work if its spool directory is mounted via NFS even if no_root_squash is set.

Files

/var/spool/atd The directory for storing jobs; this should be mode 700, owner daemon.

/var/spool/atd The directory for storing output; this should be mode 700, owner daemon.

/etc/at.allow, /etc/at.deny determine who can use the at system.

Releases

17 releases since Debian 1.3 (Bo); the text changed 9 times.

  1. 1.3
  2. 2.0
  3. 2.1
  4. 2.2
  5. 3.0–3.1
  6. 4.0–5.0
  7. 6.0
  8. 7–9
  9. 10–13
  10. Arch

-f since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze).

Bugs

The functionality of atd should be merged into cron(8).

From at 3.2.5-5 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.