We use webalizer to generate reports on our Apache access logs - it is useful in conjunction with Google Analytics.

The problem is that webalizer uses ALOT of CPU when running. If I run top I can see two perl processes with 90% CPU - this slows down the machine and therefore the website for our users.

Webalizer is run via a daily cron job (/etc/cron.daily/00webalizer):

#! /bin/bash
# update access statistics for the web site
if [ -s /var/log/httpd/access_log ]; then
   exec /usr/bin/webalizer -Q
fi

Does anyone know how to limit how much CPU webalizer can use? For example, would nice help and how would I use it?