Bug#1083071: popularity-contest: runs twice

[Thorsten Glaser <tg@mirbsd.de>]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2024, Bill Allombert wrote:

>On Tue, Oct 01, 2024 at 12:45:13AM +0200, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
>> Package: popularity-contest
>> Version: 1.76
>> Severity: normal
>> X-Debbugs-Cc: tg@mirbsd.de
>>
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root      21239 Sep 26 11:06 popularity-contest
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root      21260 Sep 26 06:25 popularity-contest.0
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       4875 Sep 19 11:06 popularity-contest.1.gz
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       4883 Sep 19 06:25 popularity-contest.2.gz
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       4864 Sep 12 11:06 popularity-contest.3.gz
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       4893 Sep 12 06:25 popularity-contest.4.gz
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       4878 Sep  5 11:06 popularity-contest.5.gz
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root       4871 Sep  5 06:25 popularity-contest.6.gz
>
>This is more or less intended...
>There are two cron jobs, one weekly and one daily.
>The weekly run predictably when the sysadmin has configured daily cronjob
>to run (6:25 by default).
>The daily run actually at a random time of the week.
>
>Normally if the daily succeed, then the weekly is skipped, but there
>is a tolerance if the daily is more than 6.5 days old, then the
>weekly is run anyway, so yes it will run twice in that case.

Ah, hmm, so the popularity-contest.0 was run because the
popularity-contest.1.gz was too old (over 6½ days).

>You can check the detail in /etc/cron.daily/popularity-contest:

So, should I change either $DAY or the cron.d file to “fix” this?

Should maybe the postinst code that generates these two to be
changed to pick numbers to avoid the double-run?

Thanks,
//mirabilos
-- 
  "Using Lynx is like wearing a really good pair of shades: cuts out
   the glare and harmful UV (ultra-vanity), and you feel so-o-o COOL."
                                         -- Henry Nelson, March 1999