Advertisement
Advanced thin client solution for Linux, based on Open Source. Mix Windows and Linux applications on the same desktop. V
| Weekly edition | Kernel | Security | Distributions | Search |
| Archives | Calendar | Subscribe | Write for LWN | LWN.net FAQ |
LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems
LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems
Posted Jan 25, 2007 15:26 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137)In reply to: LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems by mingo
Parent article: LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems
Furthermore, if there's a failure in any of the subsystems, i definitely do not want to hide this fact by having a "restart and try again" feature.My understanding is that MINIX 3 will log server/driver crashes and email the developer if so configured. I can't remember if I read this somewhere here, or in one of the whitepapers.
(Log in to post comments)
LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems
Posted Jan 27, 2007 22:50 UTC (Sat) by pascal.martin (subscriber, #2995) [Link]
Minix will log server/driver crashes? To disk ? even if the disk driver crashed? :-)
Lets assume the disk driver was restarted. What happens if the disk driver crashes again, because of the activity caused by the crash log? 8-)
That may seems silly, but I have seen similar "death trap" problems in actual life.
LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems
Posted Jan 29, 2007 15:22 UTC (Mon) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
Well yes, there is some chance of that happening, but there's also some chance that you will be hit by a bus and killed before you read this post.I expect the logging system works in enough cases to be a benefit.
LCA: Andrew Tanenbaum on creating reliable systems
Posted Jan 31, 2007 22:50 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
I just found this bit of information in the paper "Reorganizing UNIX for Reliability"
If crashes reoccur, a binary exponential backoff protocol could be used to prevent bogging down the system with repeated recoveries.
Unfortunately, no specifics are given. It sounds like something from Star Trek TNG.
Data: "Captain, I could use an binary exponential backoff protocol to restart the warp engines."
Picard: "Very good Mr. Data -- make it so!"
exponential backoff
Posted Feb 1, 2007 12:54 UTC (Thu) by robbe (guest, #16131) [Link]
Exponential backoff is a standard technique used, for example by mailservers, in the face of transient failures: after the n-th consequitve
error, wait f * k^n seconds, then retry. Suitable values for f and k
depend on the application -- k is often 2 -> binary exponential backoff.
Example with f = 300, i.e. 5 minutes (a viable value for SMTP):
* First try ... fails
* Wait 5 minutes
* Second try ... fails
* Wait 10 minutes
* Third try ... fails
* Wait 20 minutes
* Fourth try ... fails
* Wait 40 minutes
* Fifth try ...
etc.
It would work the same for OS-component restart, of course with values
for f in the milliseconds.