Re: svlogd localtime option

[Ian Stokes-Rees <i.stokes-rees1@physics.ox.ac.uk>]

Hi,

FWIW, I agree 100% with Jared.  I *only* look at runit output on its 
own, I *never* do merging, and if I *did* do merging, it would only be 
with all the other log file outputs which I have which use localtime.  I 
often want to cut and paste blocks of runit output into emails to 
demonstrate certain bits of behaviour, and I constantly have to explain 
to people that it is GMT, not localtime.  At least here in France that 
is only a one or two hour difference (depending on time of year), 
whereas for others it could be very annoying to constantly delete 11 
hours (say).

Is it really that aweful to give users this common sense and common use 
case option by, as Jared suggested, adding a -ttt option?  If they 
really want GMT, then -tt is fine.

I also agree that runit is amazing, and I am astonished that more people 
don't use it.  I've started publicising it quite widely among the grid 
computing community I'm involved with, and have referenced it as being 
critical to the fault tolerance and robustness of the grid 
infrastructure I've been developing.

Cheers,

Ian.

Jared Rhine wrote:
>   Jared> Would there be resistance to having [svlogd] be really useful by
>   Jared> supporting a -ttt which uses localtime? [...] I appreciate
>   Jared> that UTC-based servers are useful...
> 
>   Gerrit> Using TAI or UTC has the great advantage that logs are
>   Gerrit> sortable after merging, this is not guaranteed when using
>   Gerrit> localtime.
> 
> As mentioned, I understand that UTC has advantages.  With mutual
> respect as professionals, I disagree with that characterization of
> "great advantage" though, especially in comparsion to the
> disadvantages.  The disadvantages hit me every single day, whereas
> I've never once wanted to do a simple log merge in 10 years across
> dozens (hundreds?) of servers.  When I do, it's always script-mediated
> and my localtime can easily be transformed back into UTC or TAI64n
> specifically for that purpose (though that's not how I do it).
> 
> Why is UTC there at all?  TAI64n has some minor advantages over even
> UTC, so why don't we force everyone to pipe everytime?  Presumably to
> save some humans some time.
> 
> It simply seems wise to support the common use case, which is maybe
> 95% browsing, 4% archiving, and 1% merging.  Instead, I should need to
> incorporate a pipeline for 99+% of the times I use the file, instead
> of the <1% of the time I need to merge?  And cause extra work every
> time I'm grepping, opening in an editor, etc.  Of course I can
> construct command lines pipes and aliases to work around the problem.
> I just don't see why I'm working around it all.
> 
>   Gerrit> I think it's better to let the pager used to display logs do
>   Gerrit> such jobs.
> 
> Fair enough.  But reasonable people can disagree on methods and
> practices, and not everyone uses a pager for browsing.  This one
> single issue is the sole gripe about the functionality of runit.
> 
> It's trivial for me to substitute gmtime with localtime, and my latest
> installs are working great like that.  But now I'm maintaining a fork,
> which seems silly for such a small (and useful!) change.  But if such
> an enhancement would be rejected on design grounds, it's important
> enough for me to do so.  I'd rather put that time into a patch that
> would be accepted; 
> 
>   Charlie> Ambiguous times in log files are not such a good idea.
> 
> I'm a big boy; I'd prefer the rope to hang myself.  I'm just asking
> for a switch that's maybe a couple lines of code, not to bring down
> the entire sysadmin community with my wicked ways :)
> 
> Anyway, that's my pitch.  I tried to state it as strongly as I
> politely can.  Still your call on the design/patch acceptance issue of
> course.
> 
> -- jared@wordzoo.com
> 
> War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. -Ambrose Bierce

-- 
Ian Stokes-Rees                 i.stokes-rees1@physics.ox.ac.uk
Particle Physics, Oxford        http://www-pnp.physics.ox.ac.uk/~stokes