How To Install anacron on Ubuntu 20.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install anacron on Ubuntu 20.04. anacron is cron-like program that doesnt go by time

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install anacron on Ubuntu 20.04.

What is anacron

anacron is:

Anacron (like “anac(h)ronistic”) is a periodic command scheduler. It executes commands at intervals specified in days. Unlike cron, it does not assume that the system is running continuously. It can therefore be used to control the execution of daily, weekly, and monthly jobs (or anything with a period of n days), on systems that don’t run 24 hours a day. When installed and configured properly, Anacron will make sure that the commands are run at the specified intervals as closely as machine uptime permits.

This package is pre-configured to execute the daily jobs of the Debian system. You should install this program if your system isn’t powered on 24 hours a day to make sure the maintenance jobs of other Debian packages are executed each day. Task: ubuntu-desktop-minimal, ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-core, xubuntu-desktop, lubuntu-desktop, ubuntustudio-desktop-core, ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntukylin-desktop, ubuntu-mate-core, ubuntu-mate-desktop, ubuntu-budgie-desktop

There are three methods to install anacron on Ubuntu 20.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install anacron Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install anacron using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install anacron

Install anacron Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install anacron using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install anacron

Install anacron Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install anacron using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install anacron

How To Uninstall anacron on Ubuntu 20.04

To uninstall only the anacron package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove anacron

Uninstall anacron And Its Dependencies

To uninstall anacron and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 20.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove anacron

Remove anacron Configurations and Data

To remove anacron configuration and data from Ubuntu 20.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge anacron

Remove anacron configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove anacron configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge anacron

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install anacron package on Ubuntu 20.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.