#804553 do not max my CPU once a week

Package:
dhelp
Source:
dhelp
Submitter:
Antoine Beaupr��
Date:
2015-11-09 14:39:09 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
#804553#5
Date:
2015-11-09 14:30:46 UTC
From:
To:
Package: dhelp
Version: 0.6.21+nmu6
Severity: wishlist

I don't quite understand why, but every once in a while, what I think is
this package maxes out my CPU in what seems to be an attempt at
rebuilding a documentation index. According to top, it looks like this:

PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+   COMMAND
29460 root      20   0  187092 172884   2736 R  80,0  4,7   1:57.14 index++

And ps axfu is like this:

USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root     22706  0.0  0.0  12644  1928 ?        Ss   nov08   0:00 /usr/sbin/anacron -dsq
root     29439  0.0  0.0   4328   748 ?        S    09:11   0:00  \_ /bin/sh -c run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
root     29445  0.0  0.0   4216   692 ?        S    09:11   0:00      \_ run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
root     29453  0.0  0.0   4328   804 ?        S    09:11   0:00          \_ /bin/sh /etc/cron.weekly/dhelp
root     29458  0.1  0.5  80148 18828 ?        Sl   09:11   0:00              \_ /usr/bin/ruby -w /usr/sbin/dhelp_parse -i
root     29460 29.3  4.7 187092 172888 ?       S    09:11   2:11                  \_ /usr/bin/index++ --config-file /usr/share/dhelp/config/swish++.conf --index-file /var/lib/dhelp/documents.index --follow-links -

Sometimes it's ghostscript that maxes out the CPU, but it's within the
same cronjob:

PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+   COMMAND
10112 root      20   0  110836  21172   9268 R  99,7  0,6   0:00.74 gs

The job takes about 12 minutes to complete.

I am pretty sure the package list hasn't changed. I haven't done
upgrades or changed the documentation set that warrants a full rebuild
of the documentation. Why is this happening?

And why is this happening in a cronjob and not as part of a trigger or
something similar?

Because this is running weekly, new packages will not be picked up for a
week, which may cause confusion...

The dhelp cronjob file doesn't explain its purpose either, it would be
nice if it was at least possible to turn the thing off easily.

A.