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Re:Random Numbers in Bash by hayst4ck on Monday March 27, 2023 @12:13PM (#35328509)
While being overly pedantic (because "not true" random is a spectrum), it is good practice to use random numbers to ensure that a recurring cron job does not run at the same time on all machines.

This goes from good practice to necessary as a cron job uses increasing resources or talks to a centralized service.

Puppet implements this as splay: https://www.puppet.com/docs/puppet/7/configuration.html#spla...

Re:Random Numbers in Bash by dharmab on Monday March 27, 2023 @01:54PM (#35329933)
Systemd offers multiple options for randomized delays for timers, documented at: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.tim...
Re:Random Numbers in Bash by kevin_thibedeau on Monday March 27, 2023 @02:19PM (#35330232)
You don't need the shell for that. Every modern cron supports randomization internally.