Why would client 1s connection be unstable but client 2s not? In any normal usage the ZK clients are going to be on the same network. Or, are you thinking cross-data-center usage? In my opinion, ZooKeeper is not suited to cross data center usage.
In any event, as others have pointed out, Zookeeper is _not_ a transactional system. It is an eventually consistent system that will give you a reasonable degree of distributed coordination semantics. There are edge cases as you describe but they are in the level of noise. -Jordan On Jan 14, 2013, at 5:52 PM, Hulunbier <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Vitalii, > > Thanks a lot, got your idea. > > Suppose we are measuring the time of events outsides the system(zk & clients) > . > > And we have no client side time tracking routine. > > And t_i < t_k if i < k > > t_0 : > > client1 has created lock/node1, client2 has created lock/node2; > client1 thinks itself holding the lock; client2 does not, and watching > lock/node1. > > t_1 : > > ZK thinks client1's session is timeout(let's say, client1 is actually > failed to send heart-beat message on time, due to a long pause of jvm > gc). > > ZK deletes lock/node1, > sends timeout message to client1, > sends "node_not_exist" message to client2 (or send this message before > the deletion, but it does not matter in our case) > > but for some reason, link between zk and client1 becomes very unstable, > high packet loss, large amount of packet retransmission, > which leads to a significant packet transmission delay(between client1 > and zk only), but the tcp connection is NOT broken. > > t_2: > > client2 got the "node_not_exist" event, and issues the getChildren Cmd > > t_3: > > client2 found the only node lock/node2, and thinks itself holding the > lock, and begins acting like a lock owner. > > (at the same time, client1 is also thinking itself holding the lock) > > t_4: > > session_timeout message not reach client1 yet, > > client1's jvm gc completed, doing something as the lock-owner. > > t_5: > > network becomes stable, finally, the session_timeout message sent from > zk reached client1; > > client1 thinks itself no longer holding the lock, but it is too late, > it has done something really bad between t_4 and t_5. > > -------------------------- > > Sorry for the grammar, I am not a native English speaker. > > > On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:38 PM, Vitalii Tymchyshyn <[email protected]> wrote: >> There are two events: disconnected and session expired. The ephemeral nodes >> are removed after the second one. The client receives both. So to >> implement "at most one lock holder" scheme, client owning lock must think >> it've lost lock ownership since it've received disconnected event. So, >> there is period of time between disconnect and session expired when noone >> should have the lock. It's "safety" time to accomodate for time shifts, >> network latencies, lock ownership recheck interval (in case when client >> can't stop using resource immediatelly and simply checks regulary if it >> still holds the lock). >> >> >> >> 2013/1/14 Hulunbier <[email protected]> >> >>> Hi Vitalii, >>> >>>> I don't see why clock must be in sync. >>> >>> I don't see any reason to precisely sync the clocks either (but if we >>> could ... that would be wonderful.). >>> >>> By *some constrains of clock drift*, I mean : >>> >>> "Every node has a clock, and all clocks increase at the same rate" >>> or >>> "the server’s clock advance no faster than a known constant factor >>> faster than the client’s.". >>> >>> >>>> Also note the difference between disconnected and session >>>> expired events. This time difference is when client knows "something's >>>> wrong", but another client did not get a lock yet. >>> >>> sorry, but I failed to get your idea well; would you please give me >>> some further explanation? >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Vitalii Tymchyshyn <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>>> I don't see why clock must be in sync. They are counting time periods >>>> (timeouts). Also note the difference between disconnected and session >>>> expired events. This time difference is when client knows "something's >>>> wrong", but another client did not get a lock yet. You will have problems >>>> if client can't react (and release resources) between this two events. >>>> >>>> Best regards, Vitalii Tymchyshyn >>>> >>>> >>>> 2013/1/13 Hulunbier <[email protected]> >>>> >>>>> Thanks Jordan, >>>>> >>>>>> Assuming the clocks are in sync between all participants… >>>>> >>>>> imho, perfect clock synchronization in a distributed system is very >>>>> hard (if it can be). >>>>> >>>>>> Someone with better understanding of ZK internals can correct me, but >>>>> this is my understanding. >>>>> >>>>> I think I might have missed some very important and subtile(or >>>>> obvious?) points of the recipe / ZK protocol. >>>>> >>>>> I just can not believe that, there could be such type of a flaw in the >>>>> lock-recipe, for so long time, without anybody has pointed it out. >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Jordan Zimmerman >>>>> <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> On Jan 12, 2013, at 2:30 AM, Hulunbier <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Suppose the network link betweens client1 and server is at very low >>>>>>> quality (high packet loss rate?) but still fully functional. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Client1 may be happily sending heart-beat-messages to server without >>>>>>> notice anything; but ZK server could be unable to receive >>>>>>> heart-beat-messages from client1 for a long period of time , which >>>>>>> leads ZK server to timeout client1's session, and delete the >>> ephemeral >>>>>>> node >>>>>> >>>>>> I believe the heartbeats go both ways. Thus, if the client doesn't >>> hear >>>>> from the server it will post a Disconnected event. >>>>>> >>>>>>> But I still feels that, no matter how well a ZK application behaves, >>>>>>> if we use ephemeral node in the lock-recipe; we can not guarantee "at >>>>>>> any snapshot in time no two clients think they hold the same lock", >>>>>>> which is the fundamental requirement/constraint for a lock. >>>>>> >>>>>> Assuming the clocks are in sync between all participants… The server >>> and >>>>> the client that holds the lock should determine that there is a >>>>> disconnection at nearly the same time. I imagine that there is a certain >>>>> amount of time (a few milliseconds) overlap here. But, the next client >>>>> wouldn't get the notification immediately anyway. Further, when the next >>>>> client gets the notification, it still needs to execute a getChildren() >>>>> command, process the results, etc. before it can determine that it has >>> the >>>>> lock. That two clients would think they have the lock at the same time >>> is a >>>>> vanishingly small possibility. Even if it did happen it would only be >>> for a >>>>> few milliseconds at most. >>>>>> >>>>>> Someone with better understanding of ZK internals can correct me, but >>>>> this is my understanding. >>>>>> >>>>>> -Jordan >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Best regards, >>>> Vitalii Tymchyshyn >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Best regards, >> Vitalii Tymchyshyn
