Issue

In RHEL5, if the date provided to at is already past, the requested command is being executed immediately. Also, if the date does not contain a year, it will default to the current year, even when the date is past already.

Examples :

# echo date | at 10:30 8 Jan
job 10 at 2012-01-08 10:30
# mail
Mail version 8.1 6/6/93.  Type ? for help.
"/var/spool/mail/root": 1 message 1 new
>N  1 root@dhcp-27-77.brq.  Mon Aug 27 13:26  16/734   "Output from your job       10"
& d
& q
# echo date | at 10:30 8 Jan 2010
job 11 at 2010-01-08 10:30
# mail
Mail version 8.1 6/6/93.  Type ? for help.
"/var/spool/mail/root": 1 message 1 new
>N  1 root@dhcp-27-77.brq.  Mon Aug 27 13:28  16/734   "Output from your job       11"

The above examples show that the command does not behave as expected :

• The chosen year is automatically set to 2012 even if date is past already
• If the date is past, the command is executed immediately instead of aborted

Newer versions, such as the one shipped in RHEL6, behave as expected :

• The year defaults to next one if the date is past already (but no year provided)
• If the date is past, the requested command will not be executed