[Bug 1702785] [NEW] High memory and "can't fork" on heavy long-lived cron daemon

[Ryan Finnie]

Public bug reported:

Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS, cron 3.0pl1-124ubuntu2

On a server with heavy cron use (a few thousand entries across cron.d /
users, several runs per second, a few dozen forks running at any given
time), cron will creep up in memory usage.  Last I saw was 6GB RSS, at
which point it will start doing:

Jul  6 07:01:27 host cron[21699]: (CRON) error (can't fork)

Not all runs will fail, but this trend will continue until cron is
restarted.

** Affects: cron (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Confirmed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1702785

Title:
  High memory and "can't fork" on heavy long-lived cron daemon

Status in cron package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS, cron 3.0pl1-124ubuntu2

  On a server with heavy cron use (a few thousand entries across cron.d
  / users, several runs per second, a few dozen forks running at any
  given time), cron will creep up in memory usage.  Last I saw was 6GB
  RSS, at which point it will start doing:

  Jul  6 07:01:27 host cron[21699]: (CRON) error (can't fork)

  Not all runs will fail, but this trend will continue until cron is
  restarted.

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