Problems with periodic scripts in jails [Cron <operator@sosai> /usr/libexec/save-entropy]

[Josef Karthauser]

On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 01:32:07AM +1000, Bruce Evans wrote:
> > Ok, I've found the cause of the problem.  Cron is spawning
> > more than one copy of the entropy script...
> 
> Cron has been filling my mailbox with complaints about this for years.
> (I only partially filled the mailbox of the author of the entropy
> script with complaints about it 3 or 4 times :-).  In my case, the
> multiple crons are caused by /usr being nfs-mounted and the server
> being down.  cron forks OK, but each copy blocks waiting for something
> in /usr.  When the server comes back up, a thundering herd of entropy
> scripts run and clobber each others' rotation of the entropy files.
> Cron normally runs the entropy script every 11 minutes, so the herd
> grows quickly.  The herd (or perhaps other herds) also exhausts pipe
> kva on machines with small amounts of RAM (64M) while waiting.
> 

In my case however cron is consistently executing TWO copies of
everything at the same time.  What kind of wierdness is that?
(Something jail related... what?)

Joe
-- 
Josef Karthauser (joe at tao.org.uk)	       http://www.josef-k.net/
FreeBSD (cvs meister, admin and hacker)     http://www.uk.FreeBSD.org/
Physics Particle Theory (student)   http://www.pact.cpes.sussex.ac.uk/
================ An eclectic mix of fact and theory. =================
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