Move cron.daily to run earlier

[inghamn]

Ubuntu's default configuration sets cron.daily stuff to start running at 6:00 am. Unattended upgrades are part of that, and occur fairly late in the process. By the time Unattended Upgrades run and reboot, it's usually 8:00 am. This is putting upgrades and reboots into normal working hours.

We should adjust crontab to start the cron.daily stuff earlier.

I know Ubuntu is usuing Anacron, so we'll need to make sure we understand how to control when things run.

[pgporada]

On Ubuntu 16.04, /etc/cron.daily will run at 06:25AM.

$ cat /etc/crontab 
# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file
# and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,
# that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user	command
17 *	* * *	root    cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6	* * *	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6	* * 7	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6	1 * *	root	test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )

Since Ubuntu is using anacron, the job will be kicked off once 1 per day, but staggered by 5 minutes.

$ cat /etc/anacrontab 
# /etc/anacrontab: configuration file for anacron

# See anacron(8) and anacrontab(5) for details.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
HOME=/root
LOGNAME=root

# These replace cron's entries
1	5	cron.daily	run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
7	10	cron.weekly	run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
@monthly	15	cron.monthly	run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly

You may want to template the /etc/cron.daily file to run earlier so that your unattended upgrades finish before 8AM. Just a suggestion at least. Hope this helps!