ped is a process execution daemon, comparable to cron in its basic
functionality. It monitors a given directory. If a user or an
application drops a file into this directory, ped parses the content
and executes a given command. The syntax of these files describes the
functionality: "[from (unixtimestamp)] [until (unixtimestamp)] [asuser
(username)] start|restart|loop (command) [(parameter)]". ped was primary
written to schedule time-consuming tasks initiated by a Web application.