[rtg] rtgpoll using 98% CPU, causing high load

[centyx at centyx.net]

I setup rtgpoll ( from cvs ) yesterday on a server with a p4 2.6ghz processor and 1gb memory running Linux 2.4. The load usually stays around 0.55. I started with a fresh database and created targets using the included rtgtargmkr.pl. Currently there is one 'router' with 18 'interfaces.' rtgpoll ran fine, until around 2:30am, which also happens to be the time when traffic is highest on the network due to backup transfers. At this point, rtg's CPU usage according to the output of ps and top began to skyrocket, and the system load went up to 10. The system became nearly unusable. Once I restarted rtgpoll the load dropped back to normal and everything was fine. 

Has anyone experienced similar issues or know why this might be happening? I have read previously on the mailing list accounts of other users having hundreds of interfaces being polled, and I am only polling 18, so I would think that I wouldn't be running into perforance/resource issues on a generally idle machine. Any clues or tips on how to troubleshoot this further would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Michael