Description of Problem: Hi, I've posted a parallel enhancement request under the apmd package. Could you please add the -s flag when running anacron in /etc/init.d/anacron? This means to run jobs sequentially instead of all at once. My problem was that without this flag, anacron runs my backup script and tripwire checks at the same time and my computer slows to a crawl during all that hard drive activity. With -s, I don't have this problem, and I'm sure other people would appreciate this small fix.
It is proper to add -s to serialize the jobs and it will satisfy your needs. However for those who want to run their jobs without delay,how can I satisfy them in the same time. I understand your advice will make some users of anacron happy,but some of them are unhappy after the changes are implemented. So my opinion is customising the anacron by yourself is the best choice.
Perhaps running the cron jobs serially might well make sense in some cases. By definition cron jobs run by anacron are not run at the time specified in the actual crontab file, so I don't see how they not being run simulataneously should cause any problems. I haven't [The above mentioned apmd bug is bug 65869.] However at least the system crontabs use run-parts to serialize the execution of the jobs. So can't you just do the same?
The reason this is a problem on my system is that my backup script runs weekly, but updatedb and tripwire run daily. Once a week, anacron will use run-parts on the daily and weekly jobs at the same time.
(reopening)
In anacron-2.3-23, /etc/init.d/anacron now starts anacron with the "-s" option, and at nice level 19 incidently.
*** Bug 73752 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***