Comment # 2 on bug 1017160 from Kristyna Streitova

I'm not able to reproduce it for Tumbleweed. I think it behaves correctly
there. When you start cron it runs acquire_daemonlock() function that writes
cron's pid into /run/cron.pid and tries to apply a lock on this file. If it's
not possible then it means that another cron daemon is already running and we
exit.

Tumbleweed
----------

# cat /etc/issue
Welcome to openSUSE Tumbleweed 20161226 - Kernel \r (\l).

# ps aux | grep cron
root     13455  0.0  0.0   9336   960 pts/0    S+   19:39   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron

# cron

# ps aux | grep cron
root     13458  0.0  0.0  18720  1600 ?        Ss   19:39   0:00 cron
root     13460  0.0  0.0   9336   964 pts/0    S+   19:39   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron

# cron
cron: can't lock /run/cron.pid, otherpid may be 13458: Resource temporarily
unavailable

# ps aux | grep cron
root     13458  0.0  0.0  18720  1600 ?        Ss   19:39   0:00 cron
root     13463  0.0  0.0   9336   972 pts/0    S+   19:39   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron


For SLE12 I can reproduce a similar behaviour you described but it's pretty
consistent. It just runs more and more cron processes as the locking isn't
successful.

SLE12SP1
--------

# cat /etc/SuSE-release 
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (x86_64)
VERSION = 12
PATCHLEVEL = 1
...

# ps aux | grep cron
root      9109  0.0  0.2   9240   932 pts/0    S+   20:35   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron

# cron

# ps aux | grep cron
root      9111  0.0  0.2  18824   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9113  0.0  0.2   9240   932 pts/0    S+   20:35   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron

# cron

# ps aux | grep cron
root      9111  0.0  0.2  18824   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9115  0.0  0.2  18824   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9117  0.0  0.2   9240   932 pts/0    S+   20:35   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron

# cron
# cron
# cron
# cron
# cron
# cron

# ps aux | grep cron
root      9111  0.0  0.2  18824   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9115  0.0  0.2  18824   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9119  0.0  0.2  18828   952 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9121  0.0  0.2  18828   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9123  0.0  0.2  18828   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9125  0.0  0.2  18820   948 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9127  0.0  0.2  18820   940 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9129  0.0  0.2  18824   952 ?        Ss   20:35   0:00 cron
root      9131  0.0  0.2   9240   932 pts/0    S+   20:35   0:00 grep
--color=auto cron


This issue seems to be fixed by upstream in this commit [1]. I built a test
package for SLE12 [2]. Would you please be so kind and test if it works fine
for you? Thanks!


[1]
https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/cronie.git/commit/?id=49225e172d156531ca142518d2638350752e373a
[2]
https://build.suse.de/package/show/home:kstreitova:test-branches:SUSE:SLE-12:Update/cronie