Re: Reliability of RPC services

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Tue, 2006-04-25 at 16:25 +0200, Bas Wijnen wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 10:03:56AM -0400, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> > I agree. Also, there is something else that we all agree on: if one
> > mechanism can handle two problems with acceptable efficiency, it is a
> > mistake to introduce a second mechanism for the second problem.
> > 
> > So I pose the following test case:
> > ...
> > If we conclude that we need watchdogs for this (or for something else),
> > then I suggest that kernel-supported capability death notice (any kind)
> > is unnecessary and should not be implemented.
> 
> I disagree.  Although it seems likely that a watchdog (possibly in the form of
> the user himself) is needed for servers entering infinite loops, I don't think
> this is an adequate solution.  There just isn't anything better, so we'll have
> to accept it anyway.  That doesn't mean we must accept it as a solution for
> situations where good alternatives exist as well, though.

Certainly not. What we must accept is that *any* solution we have
identified has problems. The question is: how many bad solutions to
different parts of the problem must we accept simultaneously?

shap