[4655] in Athena Bugs
cron: new options
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Basch)
Sun Apr 1 05:14:24 1990
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 90 05:14:09 -0400
To: software-suggestions@MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
From: Richard Basch <probe@MIT.EDU>
Yes, I know I shouldn't have both mail addresses, but it is both a bug
report and suggested enhancements for a workaround. Look in "bugs" or
"changes" for the bug report about cron loadspikes.
The following is what I would recommend as a solution to the "cron"
load-spike that occurs. Since this solution allows for the standard
behavior of cron and accomodates our environment with new options, I am
proposing the options here. (However, since there is some pressure to
have some fix in the next release, so I will do what I have to.)
Add two options:
-skew: This will skew cron's execution to the second between
the minutes at which it was started. (eg. if it was
started 20 seconds past the minute, process crontab
in future at 20 seconds past the minute).
-C dir: Specify an alternate directory for finding the
crontab and crontab.local files. (Athena workstations
would use -C /site/usr/lib, so as to avoid an
indirection through the RVDs).
I will work on the code for this AFTER I have completed my projects work
for the next release, since this is a minor change, and the code cut for
this is 2 weeks later.
-Richard
