How to create a new period

The Periodic Tasks facility is designed to be extensible: new periods can be added as required. In this section we will add a new period that generates statistical information on a quarterly basis. The steps required are:

1. Determine a name for the period, e.g. quarterly.
2. Create the directory in which the quarterly tasks will be stored, e.g. local/etc/periodic/quarterly.
3. Add an entry to cron so that vwperiodic is invoked at a suitable time. The entry for quarterly will look like:

   0 7 1 1,4,7,11 * /home/vw/client/bin/vwrun vwperiodic quarterly 2>&1 | /home/vw/client/bin/vwrun vwlogger -t "KE Vitalware Periodic Tasks Report" periodic

4. Add the quarterly tasks to local/etc/periodic/quarterly.

   Statistics generate on a quarterly basis. Note that the quarterly tasks are run at 7:00 am the day after the quarter ends.