[mythtv-users] Randomizing startup times for mythfilldatabase from cron

[Yeechang Lee]

Greg Estabrooks <greg at phaze.org> says:
> > So when is the best time to be running the cron job for retrieving
> > listings?
> 
> Don't use a cronjob, use the built in ability for the backend to run
> mythfilldatabase itself. It will honour the suggested downlaod time
> from zap2it and allow them to spread their load.

And, for those of us who are still holding off on upgrading to 0.19
for one reason or another and are still using crontab, do what I do,
based on the recommendation in Jarod Wilson's guide:

### Run mythfilldatabase every night randomly in a 4-hour block after 3:01am
01 3 * * * sleep $(expr $RANDOM \% 14400) && mythfilldatabase > /var/log/mythtv/mythfilldatabase.log 2>&1

I'm a little surprised, based on the discussions I see here, of the
number of people who apparently *weren't* doing something like this
already; go figure.

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> | +1 650 776 7763 | San Francisco CA US