[systemd-devel] Feature request: randomly delay scheduled jobs

[David Strauss]

We have our configuration management tools stagger jobs based on
stable criteria like the machine ID.

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 1:13 AM, Olav Vitters <olav at vitters.nl> wrote:
> Feature request: allow to randomly delay a scheduled job
>
> Why:
> I have various cron jobs that run every 20min on various VMs + servers.
> All servers are synched with NTP. What happens is that if they use some
> shared resource (e.g. an LDAP server), the load spikes on that LDAP
> server spikes every 20min. So every 20min the LDAP server is slowish and
> afterwards it does nothing again. Not running the jobs at the same exact
> time would spread the usage of that server, and likely result is that
> the load never spikes anymore.
>
> It would be nice if I could do the following in systemd:
> Run this script every 20min, but randomly delay it by up to 5min.
>
> Currently I introduce such delays either in the script itself, and
> sometimes before calling the script. It would be much nicer to have
> a syntax for this.
>
> Note that the random delay could either be changed for each execution
> or determined once per job/unit. I'm not sure which one is better.
> Benefit if only determining the random delay once, is that you still get
> the same 20min delay each time. On other hand, that is not really random
> anymore.
>
> Different possible random option:
> a. Every 20min: 0:00 + 1min 24sec, 0:20 + 3min 21 sec, 0:40 + 0min 48sec
> b. Every 20min: 0:00 + 1min 24sec, 0:20 + 1min 24 sec, 0:40 + 1min 24sec
>
> a. = random every time
> b. = delay is random, but then predictable delay
>
> I'm fine with either btw.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Olav
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David Strauss
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