[Gllug] Staggering cron entries

[Alain Williams]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 12:29:40PM +0200, John Hearns wrote:
> I have a dim memory at the back of my mind about
> the possibility or randomly smearing cron entries in time,
> for example in a large cluster you might not want all of
> the nodes downloading something at exactly the same second,
> or making a connection to an HTTP server - or whatever.
> 
> I Was sure this was possible, but an RTFM on vixie cron
> didn't turn anything up. 
> Someone please enlighten me.

I have some hacks to vixie cron to help with this:

*/5	*	*	*	*	Command1
*/5+3	*	*	*	*	Command2

I added '+n', so that this means:
Run both commands every 5 minutes, Command1 at 0,5,10,... mins past the hour
& Command2 at 3,8,13,... mins past the hour.

I can send the patches/source if you want. I have been meaning to return
the patches to paul vixie, not quite got round to it.

The patch includes the ability to run something on the last-day-of-month
(whatever that is this month).

This wasn't quite what John asked for, but might help.

-- 
Alain Williams

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

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