Namaste Rachel, Theo(s), > Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2023 at 5:50 PM > From: "Theo de Raadt" <dera...@openbsd.org> > To: "Theo Buehler" <t...@theobuehler.org> > Cc: "Rachel Roch" <rr...@tutanota.de>, "Misc" <misc@openbsd.org> > Subject: Re: Is CRONTAB(5) random really random ? > > Theo Buehler <t...@theobuehler.org> wrote: > > > On Thu, Jan 05, 2023 at 06:15:43PM +0100, Rachel Roch wrote: > > > According to the docs : > > > > > > > A random value (within the legal range) may be obtained by using the > > > > ‘~’ character in a field. > > > > The random numbers are drawn once and then repeated regularly. This > > behavior has always bothered me but never enough to spend the time > > needed to fix it (it's not immediately obvious how to do it). A > > workaround is to use a > > > > sleep $((RANDOM \% 512)) && run_whatever > > > > construct. The number to the right of the modulo should be a power of 2 > > to avoid modulo bias. > > Any solution would need to be careful, so that a operation doesn't run > multiple times in an hour. Each column should be '0 + random % range', > but multiple columns contain ~, it gets weird. > >
The following thread may be helpful: "Regarding randomized times in crontab" https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=158705405304672&w=2 Dhanyavaad, Dharma Artha Kama Moksha
