My question comes down to, should multiple magento cron:run -vvv processes always be running and hitting MySql constantly.

I am setting up magento 2.2.1 thru Google Cloud and I have the 3 standard cron jobs that were pre-setup thru Google’s 1 click install of Magento.

*/1 * * * * /opt/bitnami/php/bin/php /opt/bitnami/apps/magento/htdocs/bin/magento cron:run -vvv 2>&1  */1 * * * * /opt/bitnami/php/bin/php /opt/bitnami/apps/magento/htdocs/update/cron.php 2>&1  */1 * * * * /opt/bitnami/php/bin/php /opt/bitnami/apps/magento/htdocs/bin/magento setup:cron:run -vvv 2>&1 

Looking at top -c there is always 2 php.bin processes running, which are hitting MySql constantly and causing it to use around 50% – 70% CPU all the time. Here is a snapshot of what it normally looks like.

 PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR  S   %CPU   %MEM  19327 mysql     20   0 3872884 332876  19172 S  60.8  3.4 332:42.45 /opt/bitnami/mysql/bin/mysqld.bin --defaults-file=/opt/bitnami/mysql/my.cnf --basedir=/opt/bitnami+ 26458 bitnami   20   0  679516 476444  64492 S  24.6  4.9   0:24.85 /opt/bitnami/php/bin/php.bin /opt/bitnami/apps/magento/htdocs/bin/magento cron:run -vvv 26415 bitnami   20   0  677532 475672  64588 R  23.6  4.9   1:36.11 /opt/bitnami/php/bin/php.bin /opt/bitnami/apps/magento/htdocs/bin/magento cron:run -vvv 

I’ve also changed the crons to run every 5 minutes, instead of the default every minute but the behavior stays the same.

My latest change was alternating every 7 minutes and 8 minutes with the 2 cron:run jobs starting 3 and 4 minutes apart, and with that only 1 cron job is running at a time with 30% – 40% CPU from MySQL.

My site also has no traffic right now because I haven’t launched it yet. Is this behavior normal from Magento since there is nothing going on with the site? I let it sit for 12 hours without doing anything at all and when i look at top the cron is still running and hammering MySQL.