Re: Option for runsv/runsvdir to specify how many times to restart a service in a certain time period before giving up?

[Alex Efros <powerman@powerman.asdfGroup.com>]

Hi!

On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 07:49:23PM +0100, Dra?en Ka?ar wrote:
> It does. Ease of configuration, for example. If an administrator has to
> configure programs with shell scripts, another admin has to find, read and
> understand those scripts before he can change anything. That's an overhead
> I'd like to avoid for simple things.

I tend to agree. But I've two comments:
1) In my experience most *nix admins know only about sysvinit, and when
   they see server with runit/daemontools they just give up. So, small
   feature in ./finish script doesn't make task much harder for such admins.
   Other admins, who know about runit, know ./finish scripts isn't usually
   used at all, so if they see ./finish script they usually look into it
   with curiosity. :)
2) Windows is example of thing developed to be ease to configure.
   I prefer harder to configure but more controlled things like *nix.

> Suppose the problem was fixed, but runit is waiting for the finish scripts
> to exit. How does one tell them to exit immediately and let runsv restart
> the services?

This is same interesting question as Alex Smith asked. I don't know, we
should ask Gerrit. Maybe signals will work...

<OT>

> > After all, it's a Unix Way.
> It's a way of the people who like to write shell scripts.

I don't like to write shell scripts. Unix Way is to have a lot of simple
programs each doing it small task. I.e. if some task can be split into
two different programs - why not go this way? Each program will be more
simple and so more reliable and have less bugs. But evil side of this is
effort to integrate all these programs (using shell scripts or something
else), yeah. Actually, there few exceptions from this rule in *nix world -
text editor Vim, for example, or email client Mutt - they both are big
complex programs, and that's good because these programs should parse user
input and provide comfortable user interface - that's impossible for
bundle of small programs. But I don't think runit is fall into this
software category - it should be reliable, secure, fast, simple and small.
This goal much ease to reach using Unix Way of programming. And so, yes,
you should use shell scripts to help runit stay small and reliable.

</OT>

-- 
			WBR, Alex.