Re: [edlug] Lots of forked processes, all saying /USR/SBIN/CRON

[rjg <rjgray@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

Andrew Aylett wrote:

> As I type, I have 79 process, all showing "/USR/SBIN/CRON" as their
> command, and as far as I can tell without looking at them all
> individually, all in state "disk sleep", with a size of 632 and RSS of
> 568, all owned by root.

One of the entries in root's crontab is locking up for some reason and 
is unable to complete whatever it is trying to do before the time comes 
round again for cron to fire it off again. You'll find the system load 
average has increased to some huge value as each cron job competes with 
the previous ones for run time.

You should try and find out what it is, and disable it in the crontab 
before running it by hand and trying to find out why it won't complete. 
This will prevent it filling up your system and reducing the response 
time so much that you can't do anything. Check your cron log entries. 
You may need to increase the level of cron logging (if your version of 
cron supports this) to get enough information about what it is trying to 
do.  Also check root's mailbox for mail from cron about any errors.

Re-enable the entry once you get it working again properly.
Robert.


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