randomly staggered crontask

clear_web_logs.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# This script allows me to run a crontab at a random point in the next hour.
# WHY?
# Using something like a little delay can also stop ALL the servers hammering a proxy at once for example.
# ...or if something breaks I don't take the entire cluster down at once

# Do the task at some random point within the next X minutes:
X=60

#pick a random minute between 1 and <=$X
TIME_TO_START=$((RANDOM%$X+1))

# put your task here
task(){
  #prune files older than a month
  find /var/log/httpd/ -type f -mtime +30 -exec rm -f {} \;
  #restart apache for good measure, (if it breaks I like to know asap)
  service httpd graceful
}

#loop once per min
for a in `seq 0 $TIME_TO_START` ; do
#  echo "sleeping, $a ($TIME_TO_START)"
  sleep 60
done
task