On 15:48:42 2008-05-13 Bill Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 11:31 AM +0400 5/13/08, Eugene wrote: > >Hi Timo, > > > >From: "Timo Sirainen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >>>I suggest that Dovecot simply terminate the current connections > >>>(causing the client to reconnect) or -- if the time change is really > >>>that much of a problem -- to restart itself automatically. > > > >>I guess terminating all current connections and restarting all > >>processes would be pretty safe, but it's not really a high priority > >>change for me.. > > > >Nevertheless, it would be very nice if you could fix it. It's a > >fairly big availability problem (for us, at least). > > Then you have a badly broken system. There is no explanation for time > going backwards on a server on a frequent unplanned basis that is not > reducible to administrative incompetence or malfunctioning hardware > (and the latter as a chronic issue can be seen as just a special case > of the former.) >
Harsh... > >And after all, if we are terminating already, adding a simple spawn > >call before that should not take much time? > > A system clock that moves backwards is indicative of a problem. > Having a service respawn itself as a response to a problem that is > outside of its control (i.e. the respawn is not itself a fix) is > begging for trouble, because that behavior has to be carefully > controlled to prevent it from contributing to a cascading problem. On > a system whose clock is untrustworthy, this is a significant > challenge. The effort to do that sort of code correctly just to > accommodate > people with broken systems seems like a terrible waste. > > > On the other hand, writing a freestanding watchdog for a critical > service is (or at least should be) something any good sysadmin can > do. If you are stuck with hardware so broken that it jumps backwards > in time without warning but not so broken that you can get it > replaced, and it lives in a network or resource environment that > prevents you from fixing the core problem, you can adapt to the > breakage yourself. I use monit for monitoring services... It so far has worked great... auto restarts etc... depneding on configuration along with a web based interface one can see a quick overview and control things(of course optional web interface) -- Andraž "ruskie" Levstik Source Mage GNU/Linux Games grimoire guru Geek/Hacker/Tinker Be sure brain is in gear before engaging mouth. Ryle hira. Key id = F4C1F89C Key fingerprint = 6FF2 8F20 4C9D DB36 B5B6 F134 884D 72CC F4C1 F89C