rand_delayed_exec (Robert Schulze <rob at rob-schulze.de>)

If one has trouble serving "synchronized" (parallel) periodic requests, like it may happen with pop3/imap, the solution might be to spread the workload across a small timeslice. This program tries to do so.

NOTE: I am not able to mathematically prove that this practice will NOT have the opposite effect - synchronising execution of rapidly succeeding (but not parallel) requests.

You may execute any program delayed by a certain time with a given propability (percent).

Build

Download and unpack the archive.
$ make
... if everything works, the result is a binary called rand_delayed_exec.

Usage

Copy the binary to an appropriate location, then give it a try:
$ rand_delayed_exec 900 50 /bin/echo foo
Will print "foo".
There is a chance of 50:50 that "foo" will be printed at once or delayed by 900 milliseconds.

Download

2009-05-06 rand_delayed_exec-0.1 (SHA256: 5103419911634b7a53095db3b02f8d70a0a0ea8fe7f755fb7300a956ea8cff49)
initial release