seti service script - proper run level (still problems)

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 09:12 4/22/2004, you wrote:
>Using the KISS principle, why not run it as the SETI folk suggest, using a 
>cron entry? (From the README)
>If you want setiathome to be started automatically, you can
>    set up a cron job.  Add the following line to your crontab:
>
>    0 1,5,9,13,17,21 * * * cd <setidir>; ./setiathome -nice 19 > /dev/null 
> 2> /dev/null

I prefer:

      17,42 * * * * cd <setidir>; ./setiathome -nice 19 > /dev/null 2> 
/dev/null

Why? On fast machines, returning results every four or five hours, there is 
significant time lost waiting two hours for the next run. Running it twice 
per hour means that (on average) my box waits 15-20 minutes idle before 
starting the next run. The setiathome process is intelligent enough not to 
start a second copy, so running it this way does nothing bad on my system. 
And, for courtesy's sake, I avoid contacting *any* server on the hour 
(12:00, 1:00, etc.) since too many people do that and the servers get 
bombarded at those times. That's why I use times like 17, 42, 51, and so 
on... just to distribute the traffic somewhat.

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com