Ten minutes past the hour

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5 total messages Started by Eric W. Ziegast Mon, 07 Sep 1992 22:02

#39

Author: Eric W. Ziegast
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1992 22:02

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For some reason many sites like calling UUNET at 10 minutes past
the hour.  Simple assumptions about how people use cron would
suggest that people would call normally on the hour or half hour,
but for some reason we see a surge at 10 past the hour.

Possible reasons:

	- Most UUCP administrators think alike.
	- Some OS vendor gives an example crontab entry that calls
		other sites at 10 past the hour.
	- There are subliminal messages in the O'Reilly book making
		UUCP administrators think that 10 past the hour is
		the best time to call another site.

Who knows?  I think the third is the real cause since we ship the
Nutshell book to all of our new customers.  ;^)

My suggestion to every site calling UUNET between 10 and 15 minutes
past the hour is to randomly generate a number between 0 and 59 and
call at that time past the hour instead.

Just FYI.
--
Eric Ziegast       ziegast@uunet.uu.net
UUNET Postmaster   uunet!postmaster

Re: Ten minutes past the hour

#41

Author: Clifton Shak
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1992 16:03

15 lines
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In article <Bu8AJu.MuE@uunet.uu.net> ziegast@uunet.UU.NET (Eric W. Ziegast) writes:

>Possible reasons:
>
>	- Most UUCP administrators think alike.
>	- Some OS vendor gives an example crontab entry that calls
>		other sites at 10 past the hour.
>	- There are subliminal messages in the O'Reilly book making
>		UUCP administrators think that 10 past the hour is
>		the best time to call another site.
>

You hit it on the nose with door number 2.  Sun ships their sample
crontab with 10 after the hour.  We do not call you at 10 after because
I guessed that a lot of people would use the sample Sun crontab unmodified.

Re: Ten minutes past the hour

#42

Author: IT Manager
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1992 16:49

24 lines
1380 bytes

In article <Bu8AJu.MuE@uunet.uu.net>, ziegast@uunet.UU.NET (Eric W. Ziegast) writes:
> For some reason many sites like calling UUNET at 10 minutes past
> the hour.  Simple assumptions about how people use cron would
> suggest that people would call normally on the hour or half hour,
> but for some reason we see a surge at 10 past the hour.
> 
> Possible reasons:
> 	- Some OS vendor gives an example crontab entry that calls
> 		other sites at 10 past the hour.

SCO Unix /usr/lib/uucp/crontab.eg runs 'uudemon.poll' at 10 minutes
past the hour.  I would bet that the surge is all of us SCO boxes calling
at the same time.



------------- 
James B. O'Connor                                     jim@tiamat.fsc.com
Information Technology Manager                        voice 615/821-4022 x651
Ahlstrom Filtration, Inc.                             fax   615/821-0616
=========
	"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President,
	 should, on no account, be allowed to do the job."
	 Douglas Adams, _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_

Re: Ten minutes past the hour

#43

Author: Andy Finkenstadt
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1992 01:14

14 lines
1022 bytes

ziegast@uunet.UU.NET (Eric W. Ziegast) writes:
>Possible reasons:
>	- Some OS vendor gives an example crontab entry that calls
>		other sites at 10 past the hour.

We check at :26 and :56 after the hour.  Thank god the problem with
the sequent startup failed is gone. :)
-- 
Andrew Finkenstadt       | Vista-Chrome, Inc.   |           andy@GEnie
GEnie Unix Sysop/Manager | The Printing House   |    NIC Handle: AF136
+1 904 222 2639 home     | 1600 Capital Cir SW  |   ...!uunet!rde!andy
+1 904 575 0189 work     | Tallahassee FL 32310 | andy@vistachrome.com

     The game of love is never called off on account of darkness.

Re: Ten minutes past the hour

#46

Author: Michael R. Miller
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 03:58

12 lines
863 bytes

In article <1992Sep9.011456.10252@homebase.vistachrome.com> andy@homebase.vistachrome.com writes:

>ziegast@uunet.UU.NET (Eric W. Ziegast) writes:
>Possible reasons:
>	etc.

I've set up xzaphod to call at :12 and :42 to permit clock drift on the
CPU to not drift into the more expensive calling hours for some other
machines xzaphod talks to which happen to be long distance numbers.

Michael
xzaphod!michael@uunet.uu.net

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