ATRUN(8)                    System Manager's Manual                   ATRUN(8)

NAME
     atrun – run jobs queued for later execution

SYNOPSIS
     atrun [-l load_avg] [-d]

DESCRIPTION
     The atrun utility runs commands queued by at(1).  It is invoked
     periodically by launchd(8) as specified in the com.apple.atrun.plist
     property list.  By default the property list contains the Disabled key
     set to true, so atrun is never invoked.

     Execute the following command as root to enable atrun:
           launchctl load -w
           /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.atrun.plist

     At every invocation, atrun starts all the jobs in the lowercase queues
     whose start time has elapsed.  In addition, if the load average over the
     last minute was less than the specified limit, then a maximum of one
     batch job (denoted by the uppercase queues) is started.

     Before starting a job, atrun checks the status of its owner's account
     with pam(3) and refuses to run the job if the account is unavailable,
     e.g., locked out or expired.

OPTIONS
     -l load_avg
             Specify a limiting load factor, over which batch jobs should not
             be run, instead of the default of 1.5 * number of active CPUs.

     -d      Debug; print error messages to standard error instead of using
             syslog(3).

FILES
     /etc/pam.d/atrun     pam.conf(5) configuration file for atrun
     /usr/lib/cron/jobs   Directory containing job files
     /usr/lib/cron/spool  Directory containing output spool files

SEE ALSO
     at(1), pam(3), syslog(3), pam.conf(5), launchd(8)

AUTHORS
     Thomas Koenig ⟨ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de⟩

macOS 15.2                       June 22, 2015                      macOS 15.2