In order to fully integrate the new machine with the NCSU Realm and to obtain support from systems staff, you must enable the “realm-cron” service. This is a new service as of the 7.2 kit, written at the request of ITD to more closely align systems with the exiting methods for campus-wide administration.

As of the 7.3 kit enabling Support Eligibility in realmconfig enables the realm-cron system. It was named so because running the realm-cron system is a requirement for support from those that support the Realm Linux on campus. Otherwise, issues will be given a lower priority -- but we do try to answer all questions and problems.

This facility is provided through the realm-hooks package. The realm-cron service runs periodically, and looks into AFS space for scripts to run on the local system. These scripts are controlled by the campus systems administrators and are not writable by users. This system has the ability to run scripts “globally” (on all Realm Linux machines) or only for machines in a specific department. This system also controls users in /etc/users.local, /root/.klogin, and the root password.

For NCSU systems administrators you can find the directory structure of the back end system for realm-cron in /afs/bp/system/i386_linux3/athena/.

To enable the realm cron jobs, enable Support Eligibility in realmconfig. This is the proper way to do so as it leaves behind /etc/sysconfig/support to indicate if support is available for this machine. If this file contains SUPPORT=yes then this machine has completed all the requirements for support eligibility and can be detected with a script. This system may be expanded in the future.

You may also enable realm-cron by issuing the following as root:

# /sbin/service realm-cron start