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authorThomas Schwinge <tschwinge@gnu.org>2013-09-25 21:45:38 +0200
committerThomas Schwinge <tschwinge@gnu.org>2013-09-25 21:45:38 +0200
commiteccdd13dd3c812b8f0b3d046ef9d8738df00562a (patch)
treee6c585035d2e869e26a0d3a93efa51810543d40e /open_issues/systemd.mdwn
parent9933cec0a18ae2a3d752f269d1bb12c19f51199d (diff)
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@@ -102,6 +102,939 @@ Likely there's also some other porting needed.
<braunr> just assume you can't use systemd on anything else than linux
+## IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2013-08-12
+
+ <azeem> huh, Lennert Poettering just mentioned the Hurd in his systmd talk
+ <azeem> well, in the context of you IPC in Unix sucks and kdbus
+ <azeem> s/you/how/
+ <pinotree> QED
+ <pinotree> what did you expect? :)
+ <azeem> I didn't quite get it, but he seemed to imply the Hurd was a step
+ in the right direction over Unix
+ <azeem> (which is obvious, but it wasn't obvious he had that opinion)
+
+
+## IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2013-08-13
+
+ <azeem> so cgroups seems to be most prominent thing the systemd people
+ think the Hurd lacks
+ <tschwinge> azeem: In 2010, I came to the same conclusion,
+ <http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/open_issues/systemd.html>. ;-)
+ <azeem> heh
+ <tschwinge> I don't think of any show-stopper for implementing that -- just
+ someone to do it.
+ <youpi> azeem: which part of cgroups, like being able to kill a cgroup?
+ <youpi> it shouldn't be very hard to implement what systemd needs
+ <azeem> probably also the resource allocation etc.
+ <azeem> the questions are I guess (i) do the cgroups semantics make sense
+ from our POV and/or do we accept that cgroups is the "standard" now and
+ (ii) should systemd require concrete implementations or just the concept
+ in a more abstract sense
+ <teythoon> being the first non Linux OS that runs systemd would be a nice
+ showcase of Hurds flexibility
+ <azeem> maybe upstart is less trouble
+ <pinotree> azeem: possibly
+ <azeem> teythoon: can you just include upstart in your GSOC? kthxbye
+ <pinotree> at least libnih (the library with base utilities and such used
+ by upstart) required a working file monitor (and the current
+ implementation kind of exposes a fd) and certain semantics for waitid
+ <pinotree> libnih/upstart have "just" the issue of being under CLA...
+ <azeem> pinotree: yeah, true
+ <azeem> I suggested "startup" as a name for a fork
+ <pinotree> imho there would be no strict need to fork
+ <teythoon> azeem: but upstart is a lot less interesting. last time I used
+ it it wasn't even possible to disable services in a clean way
+ <pochu> pinotree: is that still so now that Scott works for google?
+ <pinotree> pochu: yeah, since it's a Canonical CLA, not rally something
+ tied to a person
+ <pinotree> (iirc)
+ <pochu> sure, but scott is the maintainer...
+ <pochu> shrug
+ <azeem> nah, scott left upstart
+ <azeem> AFAIK
+ <azeem> at least James Hunt gave a talk earlier with Steve Langasek and
+ introduced himself as the upstart maintainer
+ <azeem> also I heard in the hallway track that the upstart people are
+ somewhat interested in BSD/Hurd support as they see it as a selling point
+ against systemd
+ <pinotree> pochu: it's just like FSF CLA for GNU projects: even if the
+ maintainers/contributors change altogether, copyright assignment is still
+ FSF
+ <azeem> but their accents were kinda annoying/hard to follow so I didn't
+ follow their talk closesly to see whether they brought it up
+ <azeem> pinotree: well, it's not
+ <pochu> azeem: looking at https://code.launchpad.net/libnih, I'm not sure
+ libnih has a maintainer anymore...
+ <azeem> pinotree: first off, you're not signing over the copyright with
+ their CLA, just giving them the right to relicense
+ <azeem> pinotree: but more importantaly, the FSF announced in a legally
+ binding way that they will not take things non-free
+ <azeem> anyway, I'll talk to the upstart guys about libnih
+
+
+## IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2013-08-15
+
+ <azeem> btw, I talked to vorlon about upstart and the Hurd
+ <azeem> so the situation with libnih is that it is basically
+ feature-complete, but still maintained by Scott
+ <azeem> upstart is leveraging it heavily
+ <azeem> and Scott was (back in the days) against patches for porting
+ <azeem> for upstart proper, Steve said he would happily take porting
+ patches
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-08-26
+
+ < youpi> teythoon: I tend to agree with mbanck
+ < youpi> although another thing worth considering would be adding something
+ similar to control groups
+ < youpi> AIUI, it's one of the features that systemd really requires
+ < braunr> uhg, cgroups already
+ < braunr> youpi: where is that discussion ?
+ < youpi> it was a private mail
+ < braunr> oh ok
+ < teythoon> right, so about upstart
+ < teythoon> to be blunt, I do not like upstart, though my experience with
+ it is limited and outdated
+ < braunr> that was quick :)
+ < braunr> i assume this follows your private discussion with youpi and
+ mbank ?
+ < teythoon> I used it on a like three years old ubuntu and back then it
+ couldn't do stufft hat even sysvinit could do
+ < teythoon> there was not much discussion, mbank suggested that I could
+ work on upstart
+ < teythoon> b/c it might be easier to support than systemd
+ < teythoon> which might be very well true, then again what's the benefit of
+ having upstart? I'm really curious, I should perhaps read up on its
+ features
+ < pinotree> event-based, etc
+ < youpi> it is also about avoiding being pushed out just because we don't
+ support it?
+ < teythoon> yes, but otoh systemd can do amazing things, the featurelist of
+ upstart reads rather mondane in comparison
+ < youpi> I don't really have an opinion over either, apart from portability
+ of the code
+ < braunr> teythoon: the system requirements for systemd would take much
+ time to implement in comparison to what we already have
+ < braunr> i still have maksym's work on last year gsoc on my list
+ < braunr> waiting to push in the various libpager related patches first
+ < teythoon> so you guys think it's worthwile to port upstart?
+ < braunr> no idea
+ < braunr> teythoon: on another subject
+ < azeem_> teythoon: I like systemd more, but the hallway track at Debconf
+ seemed to imply most people like Upstart better except for the CLA
+ < azeem_> which I totally forgot to address
+ < youpi> CLA ?
+ < azeem_> contributor license agreement
+ < braunr> since you've now done very good progress, is your work available
+ in the form of ready-to-test debian packages ?
+ < teythoon> braunr: it is
+ < teythoon> braunr: http://teythoon.cryptobitch.de/gsoc/heap/debian/
+ < braunr> i remember urls in some of your mails
+ < braunr> ah thanks
+ < braunr> "cryptobitch" hum :)
+ < azeem_> in any case, everbody assumed either Upstart or Systemd are way
+ ahead of systemvinit
+ < braunr> sysvinit is really ancient :)
+ < azeem_> apart from the non-event-driven fundamental issue, a lot of
+ people critized that the failure rate at writing correct init-scripts
+ appears to be too high
+ < azeem_> one of the questions brought up was whether it makes sense to
+ continue to ship/support systemvinit once a switch is made to
+ systemd/upstart for the Linux archs
+ < azeem_> systemvinit scripts might bitrot
+ < azeem_> but anyway, I don't see a switch happen anytime soon
+ < teythoon> well, did upstart gain the capability of disabling a service
+ yet?
+ < azeem_> teythoon: no idea, but apparently:
+ http://askubuntu.com/questions/19320/recommended-way-to-enable-disable-services/20347#20347
+ < teythoon> azeem_: then there is hope yet ;)
+ < azeem_> the main selling point of Upstart is that it shipped in several
+ LTS releases and is proven technology (and honestly, I don't read a lot
+ of complaints online about it)
+ < azeem_> (I don't agree that SystemD is unproven, but that is what the
+ Upstart guys implied)
+ < teythoon> am I the only one that thinks that upstart is rather
+ unimpressive?
+ * azeem_ doesn't have an opinion on it
+ < azeem> teythoon:
+ http://penta.debconf.org/dc13_schedule/events/1027.en.html has slides and
+ the video
+ < azeem> teythoon: eh, appears the link to the slides is broken, but they
+ are here:
+ http://people.canonical.com/~jhunt/presentations/debconf13/upstart-debconf-2013.pdf
+ < braunr> teythoon: actually, from the presentation, i'd tend to like
+ upstart
+ < braunr> dependency, parallelism and even runlevel compatibility flows
+ naturally from the event based model
+ < braunr> sysv compatibility is a great feature
+ < braunr> it does look simple
+ < braunr> i admit it's "unimpressive" but do we want an overkill init
+ system ?
+ < braunr> teythoon: what makes you not like it ?
+ < azeem> Lennart critized that upstart doesn't generate events, just
+ listens to them
+ < azeem> (which is a feature, not a bug to some)
+ < braunr> azeem: ah yes, that could be a lack
+ < azeem> braunr: http://penta.debconf.org/dc13_schedule/events/983.en.html
+ was the corresponding SystemD talk by Lennart, though he hasn't posted
+ slides yet I think
+ < teythoon> braunr: well, last time I used it it was impossible to cleanly
+ disable a service
+ < teythoon> also ubuntu makes such big claims about software they develop,
+ and when you read up on them it turns out that most of the advertised
+ functionality will be implemented in the near future
+ < teythoon> then they ship software as early as possible only to say later
+ that is has proven itself for so many years
+ < teythoon> and tbh I hate to be the one that helped port upstart to hurd
+ (and maybe kfreebsd as a byproduct) and later debian choses upstart over
+ systemd b/c it is available for all debian kernels
+ < kilobug> teythoon: ubuntu has a tendency to ship software too early when
+ it's not fully mature/stable, but that doesn't say anything about the
+ software itself
+ < pinotree> teythoon: note the same is sometimes done on fedora for young
+ technologies (eg systemd)
+ < azeem> teythoon: heh, fair enough
+ < p2-mate> braunr: I would prefer if my init doesn't use ptrace :P
+ < teythoon> p2-mate: does upstart use ptrace?
+ < p2-mate> teythoon: yes
+ < teythoon> well, then I guess there won't be an upstart for Hurd for some
+ time, no?
+ < kilobug> p2-mate: why does it use ptrace for ?
+ < p2-mate> kilobug: to find out if a daemon forked
+ < kilobug> hum I see
+ < azeem> p2-mate: the question is whether there's a Hurdish way to
+ accomplish the same
+ < p2-mate>
+ http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~upstart-devel/upstart/trunk/view/head:/init/job_process.c
+ < p2-mate> see job_process_trace_new :)
+ < kilobug> azeem: it doesn't seem too complicated to me to have a way to
+ get proc notify upstart of forks
+ < p2-mate> azeem: that's a good question. there is a linuxish way to do
+ that using cgroups
+ < azeem> right, there's a blueprint suggesting cgroups for Upstart here:
+ https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-q-upstart-overcome-ptrace-limitations
+ < teythoon> yes, someone should create a init system that uses cgroups for
+ tracking child processes >,<
+ < teythoon> kilobug: not sure it is that easy. who enforces that proc_child
+ is used for a new process? isn't it possible to just create a new mach
+ task that has no ties to the parent process?
+ < teythoon> azeem: what do you mean by "upstart does not generate events"?
+ there are "emits X" lines in upstart service descrpitions, surely that
+ generates event X?
+ < azeem> I think the critique is that this (and those upstart-foo-bridges)
+ are bolted on, while SystemD just takes over your systems and "knows"
+ about them first-hand
+ < azeem> but as I said, I'm not the expert on this
+ < teythoon> uh, in order to install upstart one has to remove sysvinit
+ ("yes i am sure...") and it fails to bring up the network on booting the
+ machine
+ < teythoon> also, both systemd and upstart depend on dbus, so no cookie for
+ us unless that is fixed first, right?
+ < pinotree> true
+ < teythoon> well, what do you want me to do for the next four weeks?
+ < youpi> ideally you could make both upstart and systemd work on hurd-i"86
+ < pinotree> both in 4 weeks?
+ < youpi> so hurd-i386 doesn't become the nasty guy that makes people tend
+ for one or the other
+ < youpi> I said "ideally"
+ < youpi> I don't really have any idea how much work is required by either
+ of the two
+ < youpi> I'd tend to think the important thing to implement is something
+ similar to control groups, so both upstart (which is supposed to use them
+ someday) and systemd can be happy about it
+ < teythoon> looks like upstarts functionality depending on ptrace is not
+ required, but can be enabled on a per service base
+ < teythoon> so a upstart port that just lacks this might be possible
+ < teythoon> youpi: the main feature of cgroups is that a process cannot
+ escape its group, no? i'm not sure how this could be implemented atop of
+ mach in a secure and robust way
+ < teythoon> b/c any process can just create mach tasks
+ < youpi> maybe we need to add a feature in mach itself, yes
+ < teythoon> ok, implementing cgroups sounds fun, I could do that
+ < youpi> azeem: are you ok with that direction?
+ < azeem> well, in general yes; however, AIUI, cgroups is being redesigned
+ upstream, no?
+ < youpi> that's why I said "something like cgroups"
+ < azeem> ah, ok
+ < youpi> we can do something simple enough to avoid design quesetions, and
+ that would still be enough for upstart & systemd
+ < azeem>
+ (http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/733595-all-about-the-linux-kernel-cgroups-redesign)
+ btw
+ < braunr> p2-mate: upstart uses ptrace ?
+ < p2-mate> yes
+ < youpi> teythoon: and making a real survey of what needs to be fixed for
+ upstart & systemd
+ < p2-mate> see my link posted earlier
+ < braunr> ah already answered
+ < braunr> grmbl
+ < braunr> it's a simple alternative to cgroups though
+ < braunr> teythoon: dbus isn't a proble
+ < braunr> problem
+ < braunr> it's not that hard to fix
+ < youpi> well, it hasn't been fixed for a long time now :)
+ < braunr> we're being slow, that's all
+ < braunr> and interested by other things
+ < gg0> 12:58 < teythoon> btw, who is this heroxbd fellow and why has he
+ suddenly taken interest in so many debian gsoc projects?
+ < gg0> http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2013/05/msg00133.html
+ < gg0> i notice nobody mentioned openrc
+ < pinotree> he's the debian student working on integrating openrc
+ < gg0> pinotree: no, the student is Bill Wang, Benda as he says is a
+ co-mentor
+ https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects#OpenRC_init_system_in_Debian
+ < pinotree> whatever, it's still the openrc gsoc
+ < azeem> well, they wanted to look at it WRT the Hurd, did they follow-up
+ on this?
+ < gg0> btw wouldn't having openrc on hurd be interesting too?
+ < pinotree> imho not really
+ < gg0> no idea whether Bill is also trying to figure out what to do,
+ probably not
+ < azeem> somebody could ping that thread you mentioned above to see whether
+ they looked at the Hurd and/or need help/advice
+ < gg0> azeem: yeah somebody who could provide such help/advice. like.. you?
+ for instance
+ * gg0 can just paste urls
+ < azeem> they should just follow-up on-list
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-08-28
+
+ <teythoon> anyone knows a user of cgroups that is not systemd? so far I
+ found libcg, that looks like a promising first target to port first,
+ though not surprisingly it is also somewhat linux specific
+ <taylanub> teythoon: OpenRC optionally uses cgroups IIRC.
+ <taylanub> Not mandatory because unlike systemd it actually tries (at all)
+ to be portable.
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-02
+
+ <teythoon> braunr: I plan to patch gnumach so that the mach tasks keep a
+ reference to the task that created them and to make that information
+ available
+ <teythoon> braunr: is such a change acceptable?
+ <braunr> teythoon: what for ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: well, the parent relation is currently only implemented
+ in the Hurd, but w/o this information tracked by the kernel I don't see
+ how I can prevent malicious/misbehaving applications to break out of
+ cgroups
+ <teythoon> also I think this will enable us to fix the issue with tracking
+ which tasks belong to which subhurd in the long term
+ <braunr> ah cgroups
+ <braunr> yes cgroups should partly be implemented in the kernel ...
+ <braunr> teythoon: that doesn't surprise me
+ <braunr> i mean, i think it's ok
+ <braunr> the kernel should implement tasks and threads as closely as the
+ hurd (or a unix-like system) needs it
+ <teythoon> braunr: ok, cool
+ <teythoon> braunr: I made some rather small and straight forward changes to
+ gnumach, but it isn't doing what I thought it would do :/
+ <teythoon> braunr: http://paste.debian.net/33717/
+ <braunr> you added a field to task_basic_info
+ <braunr> thereby breaking the ABI
+ <teythoon> braunr: my small test program says: my task port is 1(pid 13)
+ created by task -527895648; my parent task is 31(pid 1)
+ <teythoon> braunr: no, it is not. I appended a field and these structures
+ are designed to be extendable
+ <braunr> hm
+ <braunr> ok
+ <braunr> although i'm not so sure
+ <braunr> there are macros defining the info size, depending on what you ask
+ <braunr> you may as well get garbage
+ <braunr> have you checked that ?
+ <teythoon> i initialized my struct to zero before calling mach
+ <braunr> teythoon: can you put some hardcoded value, just to make sure data
+ is correctly exported ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: right, good idea
+ <teythoon> braunr: my task port is 1(pid 13) created by task 3; my parent
+ task is 31(pid 1) -- so yes, hardcoding 3 works
+ <braunr> ok
+ <teythoon> braunr: also I gathered evidence that the convert_task_to_port
+ thing works, b/c first I did not have the task_reference call just before
+ that so the reference count was lowered (convert... consumes a reference)
+ and the parent task was destroyed
+ <teythoon> braunr: I must admit I'm a little lost. I tried to return a
+ reference to task rather than task->parent_task, but that didn't work
+ either
+ <teythoon> braunr: I feel like I'm missing something here
+ <teythoon> maybe I should get aquainted with the kernel debugger
+ <teythoon> err, the kernel debugger is not accepting any symbol names, even
+ though the binary is not stripped o_O
+ <teythoon> err, neither the kdb nor gdb attached to qemu translates
+ addresses to symbols, gdb at least translates symbols to addresses when
+ setting break points
+ <teythoon> how did anyone ever debug a kernel problem under these
+ conditions?
+ <braunr> teythoon: i'll have a look at it when i have some time
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-03
+
+ <teythoon> :/ I believe the startup_notify interface is ill designed... an
+ translator can defer the system shutdown indefinitely
+ <braunr> it can
+ <teythoon> that's bad
+ <braunr> yes
+ <braunr> the hurd has a general tendency to trust its "no mutual trust
+ required" principle
+ <braunr> to rely on it a bit too much
+ <teythoon> well, at least it's a privileged operation to request this kind
+ of notification, no?
+ <braunr> why ?
+ <braunr> teythoon: it normally is used mostly by privileged servers
+ <braunr> but i don't think there is any check on the recipient
+ <teythoon> braunr: b/c getting the port to /hurd/init is done via
+ proc_getmsgport
+ <braunr> teythoon: ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: well, in order to get the notifications one needs the
+ msgport of /hurd/init and getting that requires root privileges
+ <braunr> teythoon: oh ok then
+ <braunr> teythoon: what's bad with it then ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: even if those translators are somewhat trusted, they can
+ (and do) contain bugs and stall the shutdown
+ <teythoon> I think this even happened to me once, I think it was the pfinet
+ translator
+ <braunr> teythoon: how do you want it to behave instead ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: well, /hurd/init notifies the processes sequentially,
+ that seems suboptimal, better to send async notifications to all of them
+ and then to collect all the answers
+ <teythoon> braunr: if one fails to answer within a rather large time frame
+ (say 5 minutes) shutdown anyway
+ <braunr> i agree with async notifications but
+ <braunr> i don't agree with the timeout
+ <teythoon> for reference, a (voluntary) timeout of 1 minute is hardcoded in
+ /hurd/init
+ <braunr> the timeout should be a parameter
+ <braunr> it's common on large machines to have looong shutdown delays
+ <teythoon> of the notification?
+ <braunr> the answer means "ok i'm done you can shutdown"
+ <braunr> well this can take long
+ <braunr> most often, administrators simply prefer to trust their program is
+ ok and won't take longer than it needs to, even if it's long
+ <teythoon> and not answering at all causes the shutdown / reboot to fail
+ making the system hang
+ <braunr> i know
+ <teythoon> in a state where it is not easily reached if you do not have
+ access to it
+ <braunr> but since it only concerns essential servers, it should befine
+ <braunr> essential servers are expected to behave well
+ <teythoon> it concerns servers that have requested a shutdown notification
+ <braunr> ok so no essential but system servers
+ <teythoon> essential servers are only exec, proc, /
+ <teythoon> yes
+ <braunr> the same applies
+ <pinotree> init and auth too, no?
+ <teythoon> yes
+ <braunr> you expect root not to hang himself
+ <teythoon> I do expect all software to contain bugs
+ <braunr> yes but you also expect them to provide a minimum level of
+ reliability
+ <braunr> otherwise you can just throw it all away
+ <teythoon> no, not really
+ <braunr> well
+ <teythoon> I know, that's my dilemma basically ;)
+ <braunr> if you don't trust your file system, you make frequent backups
+ <braunr> if you don't trust your shutdown code, you're ready to pull the
+ plug manually
+ <braunr> (or set a watchdog or whatever)
+ <braunr> what i mean is
+ <braunr> we should NEVER interfere with a program that is actually doing
+ its job just because it seems too long
+ <braunr> timeouts are almost never the best solution
+ <braunr> they're used only when necessary
+ <braunr> e.g. across networks
+ <braunr> it's much much much worse to interrupt a proper shutdown process
+ because it "seems too long" than just trust it behaves well 99999%%%% of
+ the time
+ <braunr> in particular because this case deals with proper data flushing,
+ which is an extremely important use case
+ <teythoon> it's hard/theoretically impossible to distinguish between taking
+ long and doing nothing
+ <braunr> it's impossible
+ <braunr> agreed
+ <braunr> => trust
+ <braunr> if you don't trust, you run real time stuff
+ <braunr> and you don't flush data on disk
+ <teythoon> ^^
+ <braunr> (which makes a lot of computer uses impossible as well)
+ <teythoon> there are only 2 people I trust, and the other one is not
+ /hurd/pfinet
+ <braunr> if this shutdown procedure is confined to the TCB, it's fine to
+ trust it goes well
+ <teythoon> tcb?
+ <braunr> trusted computing base
+ <braunr> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing_base
+ * teythoon shudders
+ <teythoon> "trust" is used way to much these days
+ <teythoon> and I do not like the linux 2.0 ip stack to be part of our TCB
+ <braunr> basically, on a multiserver system like the hurd, the tcb is every
+ server on the path to getting a service done from a client
+ <braunr> then make it not request to be notified
+ <braunr> or make two classes of notifications
+ <braunr> because unprivileged file systems should be notified too
+ <teythoon> indeed
+ <teythoon> by the way, we should have a hurdish libnotify or something for
+ this kind of notifications
+ <braunr> but in any case, it should really be policy
+ <braunr> we should ... :)
+ <teythoon> ^^
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-04
+
+ <teythoon> braunr: btw, I now believe that no server that requested
+ shutdown notifications can stall the shutdown for more than 1 minute
+ *unless* its message queue is full
+ <teythoon> so any fs should better sync within that timeframe
+ <braunr> where is this 1 min defined ?
+ <teythoon> init/init.c search for 60000
+ <braunr> ew
+ <teythoon> did I just find the fs corruption bug everyone was looking for?
+ <braunr> no
+ <braunr> what corruption bug ?
+ <teythoon> not sure, I thought there was still some issues left with
+ unclean filesystems every now and then
+ <teythoon> *causing
+ <braunr> yes but we know the reasons
+ <teythoon> ah
+ <braunr> involving some of the funniest names i've seen in computer
+ terminology :
+ <braunr> writeback causing "message floods", which in turn create "thread
+ storms" in the servers receiving them
+ <teythoon> ^^ it's usually the other way around, storms causing floods >,,
+ <braunr> teythoon: :)
+ <braunr> let's say it's a bottom-up approach
+ <teythoon> then the fix is easy, compile mach with -DMIGRATING_THREADS :)
+ <braunr> teythoon: what ?
+ <teythoon> well, that would solve the flood/storm issue, no?
+ <braunr> no
+ <braunr> the real solution is proper throttling
+ <braunr> which can stem from synchronous rpc (which is the real property we
+ want from migrating threads)
+ <braunr> but the mach writeback interface is async
+ <braunr> :p
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-05
+
+ <braunr> teythoon: oh right, forgot about your port issue
+ <teythoon> don't worry, I figured by now that this must be a pointer
+ <teythoon> and I'm probably missing some magic that transforms this into a
+ name for the receiver
+ <teythoon> (though I "found" this function by looking at the mig
+ transformation for ports)
+ <braunr> i was wondering why you called the convert function manually
+ <braunr> instead of simply returning the task
+ <braunr> and let mig do the magic
+ <teythoon> b/c then I would have to add another ipc call, no?
+ <braunr> let me see the basic info call again
+ <braunr> my problem with this code is that it doesn't take into account the
+ ipc space of the current task
+ <braunr> which means you probably really return the ipc port
+ <braunr> the internal kernel address of the struct
+ <braunr> indeed, ipc_port_t convert_task_to_port(task)
+ <braunr> i'd personally make a new rpc instead of adding it to basic info
+ <braunr> basic info doesn't create rights
+ <braunr> what you want to achieve does
+ <braunr> you may want to make it a special port
+ <braunr> i.e. a port created at task creation time
+ <teythoon> y?
+ <braunr> it also means you need to handle task destruction and reparent
+ <teythoon> yes, I thought about that
+ <braunr> see
+ http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/gnumach-doc/Task-Special-Ports.html#Task-Special-Ports
+ <braunr> for now you may simply turn the right into a dead name when the
+ parent dies
+ <braunr> although adding a call and letting mig do it is simpler
+ <braunr> mig handles reference counting, users just need to task_deallocate
+ once done
+ <teythoon> o_O mig does reference counting of port rights?
+ <braunr> mig/mach_msg
+ <teythoon> is there anything it *doesn't* do?
+ <braunr> i told you, it's a very complicated messaging interface
+ <braunr> coffee ?
+ <braunr> fast ?
+ <teythoon> ^^
+ <braunr> mig knows about copy_send/move_send/etc...
+ <braunr> so even if it doesn't do reference counting explicitely, it does
+ take care of that
+ <teythoon> true
+ <braunr> in addition, the magic conversions are intended to both translate
+ names into actual structs, and add a temporary reference at the same time
+ <braunr> teythoon: everything clear now ? :)
+ <teythoon> braunr: no, especially not why you suggested to create a special
+ port. but this will have to wait for tomorrow ;)
+
+
+## IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2013-09-06
+
+ <vorlon> teythoon: hi there
+ <vorlon> so I've been following your blog entries about cgroups on
+ hurd... very impressive :)
+ <vorlon> but I think there's a misunderstanding about upstart and
+ cgroups... your "conjecture" in
+ https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de/posts/what-will-i-do-next-cgroupfs-o/ is
+ incorrect
+ <vorlon> cgroups does not give us the interfaces that upstart uses to
+ define service readiness; adding support for cgroups is interesting to
+ upstart for purposes of resource partitioning, but there's no way to
+ replace ptrace with cgroups for what we're doing
+ <teythoon> vorlon: hi and thanks for the fish :)
+ <teythoon> vorlon: what is it exactly that upstart is doing with ptrace
+ then?
+ <teythoon> .,oO( your nick makes me suspicious for some reason... ;)
+ <teythoon> service readiness, what does that mean exactly?
+ <vorlon> teythoon: so upstart uses ptrace primarily for determining service
+ readiness. The idea is that traditionally, you know an init script is
+ "done" when it returns control to the parent process, which happens when
+ the service process has backgrounded/daemonized; this happens when the
+ parent process exits
+ <vorlon> in practice, however, many daemons do this badly
+ <vorlon> so upstart tries to compensate, by not just detecting that the
+ parent process has exited, but that the subprocess has exited
+ <vorlon> (for the case where the upstart job declares 'expect daemon')
+ <vorlon> cgroups, TTBOMK, will let you ask "what processes are part of this
+ group" and possibly even "what process is the leader for this group", but
+ doesn't really give you a way to detect "the lead process for this group
+ has changed twice"
+ <vorlon> now, it's *better* in an upstart/systemd world for services to
+ *not* daemonize and instead stay running in the foreground, but then
+ there's the question of how you know the service is "ready" before moving
+ on to starting other services that depend on it
+ <vorlon> systemd's answer to this is socket-based activation, which we
+ don't really endorse for upstart for a variety of reasons
+ <teythoon> hm, okay
+ <teythoon> so upstart does this only if expect daemon is declared in the
+ service description?
+ <vorlon> (in part because I've seen security issues when playing with the
+ systemd implementation on Fedora, which Lennart assures me are
+ corner-cases specific to cups, but I haven't had a chance to test yet
+ whether he's right)
+ <teythoon> and it is not used to track children, but only to observe the
+ daemonizing process?
+ <vorlon> yes
+ <teythoon> and it then detaches from the processes?
+ <vorlon> yes
+ <vorlon> once it knows the service is "ready", upstart doesn't care about
+ tracking it; it'll receive SIGCHLD when the lead process dies, and that's
+ all it needs to know
+ <teythoon> ok, so I misunderstood the purpose of the ptracing, thanks for
+ clarifying this
+ <vorlon> my pleasure :)
+ <vorlon> I realize that doesn't really help with the problem of hurd not
+ having ptrace
+ <teythoon> no, but thanks anyway
+ <vorlon> fwiw, the alternative upstart recommends for detecting service
+ readiness is for the process to raise SIGSTOP when it's ready
+ <vorlon> doesn't require ptracing, doesn't require socket-based activation
+ definitions; does require the service to run in a different mode than
+ usual where it will raise the signal at the correct time
+ <teythoon> right, but that requires patching it, same as the socket
+ activation stuff of systemd
+ <vorlon> (this is upstart's 'expect stop')
+ <vorlon> yes
+ <vorlon> though at DebConf, there were some evil ideas floating around
+ about doing this with an LD_PRELOAD or similar ;)
+ <vorlon> (overriding 'daemonize')
+ <vorlon> er, 'daemon()'
+ <teythoon> ^^
+ <vorlon> and hey, what's suspicious about my /nick? vorlons are always
+ trustworthy
+ <vorlon> ;)
+ <teythoon> sure they are
+ <teythoon> but could this functionality be reasonably #ifdef'ed out for a
+ proof of concept port?
+ <vorlon> hmm, you would need to implement some kind of replacement... if
+ you added cgroups support to upstart as an alternative
+ <vorlon> that could work
+ <vorlon> i.e., you would need upstart to know when the service has exited;
+ if you aren't using ptrace, you don't know the "lead pid" to watch for,
+ so you need some other mechanism --> cgroups
+ <vorlon> and even then, what do you do for a service like openssh, which
+ explicitly wants to leave child processes behind when it restarts?
+ <teythoon> right...
+ <vorlon> oh, I was hoping you knew the answer to this question ;) Since
+ AFAICS, openssh has no native support for cgroups
+ <teythoon> >,< I don't, but I'll think about what you've said... gotta go,
+ catch what's left of the summer ;)
+ <teythoon> fwiw I consider fork/exec/the whole daemonizing stuff fubar...
+ <teythoon> see you around :)
+ <vorlon> later :)
+
+
+## IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2013-09-07
+
+ <teythoon> vorlon: I thought about upstarts use of ptrace for observing the
+ daemonizing process and getting hold of the child
+ <teythoon> vorlon: what if cgroup(f)s would guarantee that the order of
+ processes listed in x/tasks is the same they were added in?
+ <teythoon> vorlon: that way, the first process in the list would be the
+ daemonized child after the original process died, no?
+ <vorlon> teythoon: that doesn't tell you how many times the "lead" process
+ has changed, however
+ <vorlon> you need synchronous notifications of the forks in order to know
+ that, which currently we only get via ptrace
+
+
+## IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2013-09-08
+
+ <teythoon> vorlon: ok, but why do the notifications have to be synchronous?
+ does that imply that the processes need to be stopped until upstart does
+ something?
+ <vorlon> teythoon: well, s/synchronous/reliable/
+ <vorlon> you're right that it doesn't need to be synchronous; but it can't
+ just be upstart polling the status of the cgroup
+ <vorlon> because processes may have come and gone in the meantime
+ <teythoon> vorlon: ok, cool, b/c the notifications of process changes I'm
+ hoping to introduce into the proc server for my cgroupfs do carry exactly
+ this kind of information
+ <vorlon> cool
+ <vorlon> are you discussing an API for this with the Linux cgroups
+ maintainers?
+ <teythoon> otoh it would be somewhat "interesting" to get upstart to use
+ this b/c of the way the mach message handling is usually implemented
+ <vorlon> :)
+ <teythoon> no, I meant in order for me to be able to implement cgroupfs I
+ had to create these kind of notifications, it's not an addition to the
+ cgroups api
+ <teythoon> is upstart multithreaded?
+ <vorlon> no
+ <vorlon> threads are evil ;)
+ <teythoon> ^^ I mostly agree
+ <vorlon> it uses a very nice event loop, leveraging signalfd among other
+ things
+ <teythoon> uh oh, signalfd sounds rather Linuxish
+ <pinotree> it is
+ <vorlon> I think xnox mentioned when he was investigating it that kfreebsd
+ now also supports it
+ <vorlon> but yeah, AFAIK it's not POSIX
+ <pinotree> it isn't, yes
+ <vorlon> but it darn well should be
+ <vorlon> :)
+ <vorlon> it's the best improvement to signal handling in a long time
+ <teythoon> systemd also uses signalfd
+ <teythoon> umm, it seems I was wrong about Hurd not having ptrace, the wiki
+ suggests that we do have it
+ <pinotree> FSVO "have"
+ <teythoon> ^^
+ <xnox> vorlon: teythoon: so ok kFreeBSD/FreeBSD ideally I'd be using
+ EVFILT_PROC from kevent which allows to receive events & track: exit,
+ fork, exec, track (follow across fork)
+ <xnox> upstart also uses waitid()
+ <xnox> so a ptrace/waitid should be sufficient to track processes, if Hurd
+ has them.
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-09
+
+ <youpi> teythoon: yes, the shutdown notifications do stall the process
+ <youpi> but no more than a minute, or so
+ <youpi> teythoon: btw, did you end up understanding the odd thing in
+ fshelp_start_translator_long?
+ <youpi> I haven't had the time to have a look
+ <teythoon> youpi: what odd thing? the thing about being implemented by hand
+ instead of using the mig stub?
+ <youpi> the thing about the port being passed twice
+ <youpi> XXX this looks wrong to me, please have a look
+ <youpi> in the mach_port_request_notification call
+ <teythoon> ah, that was alright, yes
+ <youpi> ok
+ <youpi> so I can drop it from my TODO :)
+ <teythoon> this is done on the control port so that a translator is
+ notified if the "parent" translator dies
+ <teythoon> was that in fshelp_start_translator_long though? I thought that
+ was somewhere else
+ <youpi> that's what the patch file says
+ <youpi> +++ b/libfshelp/start-translator-long.c
+ <youpi> @@ -293,6 +293,7 @@ fshelp_start_translator_long (fshelp_open_fn_t
+ underlying_open_fn,
+ <youpi> + /* XXX this looks wrong to me, bootstrap is used twice as
+ argument... */
+ <youpi> bootstrap,
+ MACH_NOTIFY_NO_SENDERS, 0,
+ <teythoon> right
+ <teythoon> I remember that when I got a better grip of the idea of
+ notifications I figured that this was indeed okay
+ <teythoon> I'll have a quick look though
+ <youpi> ok
+ <teythoon> ah, I remember, this notifies the parent translator if the child
+ dies, right
+ <teythoon> and it is a NO_SENDERS notification, so it is perfectly valid to
+ use the same port twice, as we only hold a receive right
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-10
+
+ <teythoon> braunr: are pthreads mapped 1:1 to mach threads?
+ <braunr> teythoon: yes
+ <teythoon> I'm reading the Linux cgroups "documentation" and it talks about
+ tasks (Linux threads) and thread group IDs (Linux processes) and I'm
+ wondering how to map this accurately onto Hurd concepts...
+ <teythoon> apparently on Linux there are PIDs/TIDs that can be used more or
+ less interchangeably from userspace applications
+ <teythoon> the Linux kernel however knows only PIDs, and each thread has
+ its own, and those threads belonging to the same (userspace) PID have the
+ same thread group id
+ <teythoon> aiui on Mach threads belong to a Mach task, and there is no
+ global unique identifier exposed for threads, right?
+ <teythoon> braunr: ^
+ <tschwinge> teythoon: There is its thread port, which in combination with
+ its task port should make it unique? (I might be missing context.)
+ <tschwinge> Eh, no. The task port's name will only locally be unique.
+ * tschwinge confused himself.
+ <teythoon> tschwinge, braunr: well, the proc server could of course create
+ TIDs for threads the same way it creates PIDs for tasks, but that should
+ probably wait until this is really needed
+ <teythoon> for the most part, the tasks and cgroup.procs files contain the
+ same information on Linux, and not differentiating between the two just
+ means that cgroupfs is not able to put threads into cgroups, just
+ processes
+ <teythoon> that might be enough for now
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-11
+
+ <teythoon> ugh, some of the half-backed Linux interfaces will be a real
+ pain in the ass to support
+ <teythoon> they do stuff like write(2)ing file descriptors encoded as
+ decimal numbers for notifications :-/
+ <braunr> teythoon: for cgroup ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: yes, they have this eventfd based notification mechanism
+ <teythoon> braunr: but I fear that this is a more general problem
+ <braunr> do we need eventfd ?
+ <teythoon> I mean passing FDs around is okay, we can do this just fine with
+ ports too, but encoding numbers as an ascii string and passing that
+ around is just not a nice interface
+ <braunr> so what ?
+ <teythoon> it's not a designed interface, it's one people came up with b/c
+ it was easy to implement
+ <braunr> if it's meant for compatibility, that's ok
+ <teythoon> how would you implement this then? as a special case in the
+ write(2) implementation in the libc? that sounds horrible but I do hardly
+ see another way
+ <teythoon> ok, some more context: the cgroup documentation says
+ <teythoon> write "<event_fd> <control_fd> <args>" to cgroup.event_control.
+ <teythoon> where event_fd is the eventfd the notification should be sent to
+ <pinotree> theorically they could have used sendmsg + a custom payload
+ <teythoon> control_fd is an fd to the pseudo file one wants notifications
+ for
+ <teythoon> yes, they could have, that would have been nicer to implement
+ <teythoon> but this...
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-12
+
+ <teythoon> ugh, gnumachs build system drives me crazy %-/
+ <pinotree> oh there's worse than that
+ <teythoon> I added a new .defs file, did as Makerules.mig.am told me to do,
+ but it still does not create the stubs I need
+ <braunr> teythoon: gnumach doesn't
+ <braunr> teythoon: glibc does
+ <braunr> well, gnumach only creates the stubs it needs
+ <braunr> teythoon: you should perhaps simply use gnumach.defs
+ <teythoon> braunr: sure it does, e.g. vm/memory_object_default.user.c
+ <braunr> teythoon: what are you trying to add ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: I was trying to add a notification mechanism for new
+ tasks
+ <teythoon> b/c now the proc server has to query all task ports to discover
+ newly created tasks, this seems wasteful
+ <teythoon> also if the proc server could be notified on task creation, the
+ parent task is still around, so the notification can carry a reference to
+ it
+ <teythoon> that way gnumach wouldn't have to track the relationship, which
+ would create all kind of interesting questions, like whether tasks would
+ have to be reparented if the parent dies
+ <braunr> teythoon: notifications aren't that simple either
+ <teythoon> y not?
+ <braunr> 1/ who is permitted to receive them
+ <braunr> 2/ should we contain them to hurd systems ? (e.g. should a subhurd
+ receive notifications concerning tasks in other hurd systems ?)
+ <teythoon> that's easy imho. 1/ a single process that has a host_priv
+ handle is able to register for the notifications once
+ <braunr> what are the requirements so cgroups work as expected concerning
+ tasks ?
+ <braunr> teythoon: a single ?
+ <teythoon> i.e. the first proc server that starts
+ <braunr> then how will subhurd proc servers work ?
+ <teythoon> 2/ subhurds get the notifications from the first proc server,
+ and only those that are "for them"
+ <braunr> ok
+ <braunr> i tend to agree
+ <braunr> this removes the ability to debug the main hurd from a subhurd
+ <teythoon> this way the subhurds proc server doesn't even have to have the
+ host_priv porsts
+ <teythoon> yes, but I see that as a feature tbh
+ <braunr> me too
+ <braunr> and we can still debug the subhurd from the main
+ <teythoon> it still works the other way around, so it's still...
+ <teythoon> yes
+ <braunr> what would you include in the notification ?
+ <teythoon> a reference to the new task (proc needs that anyway) adn one to
+ the parent task (so proc knows what the parent process is and/or for
+ which subhurd it is)
+ <braunr> ok
+ <braunr> 17:21 < braunr> what are the requirements so cgroups work as
+ expected concerning tasks ?
+ <braunr> IOW, why is the parental relation needed ?
+ <braunr> (i don't know much about the details of cgroup)
+ <teythoon> well, currently we rely on proc_child to build this relation
+ <teythoon> but any task can use task_create w/o proc_child
+ <teythoon> until one claims a newly created task with proc_child, its
+ parent is pid 1
+ <braunr> that's about the hurd
+ <braunr> i'm rather asking about cgroups
+ <teythoon> ah
+ <teythoon> the child process has to end up in the same cgroup as the parent
+ <braunr> does a cgroup include its own pid namespace ?
+ <teythoon> not quite sure what you mean, but I'd say no
+ <teythoon> do you mean pid namespace as in the Linux sense of that phrase?
+ <teythoon> cgroups group processes(threads) into groups
+ <teythoon> on Linux, you can then attach controllers to that, so that
+ e.g. scheduling decisions or resource restrictions can be applied to
+ groups
+ <teythoon> braunr: http://paste.debian.net/38950/
+ <braunr> teythoon: ok so a cgroup is merely a group of processes supervised
+ by a controller
+ <braunr> for resource accounting/scheudling
+ <braunr> teythoon: where does dev_pager.c do the same ?
+ <teythoon> braunr: yes. w/o such controllers cgroups can still be used for
+ subprocess tracking
+ <teythoon> braunr: well, dev_pager.c uses mig generated stubs from
+ memory_object_reply.defs
+ <braunr> ah memory_object_reply ok
+ <braunr> teythoon: have you tried adding it to EXTRA_DIST ?
+ <braunr> although i don't expect it will change much
+ <braunr> teythoon: hum, you're not actually creating client stubs
+ <braunr> create a kern/task_notify.cli file
+ <braunr> as it's done with device/memory_object_reply.cli
+ <braunr> see #define KERNEL_USER 1
+ <teythoon> braunr: right, thanks :)
+
+
+## IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-13
+
+ <teythoon> hm, my notification system for newly created tasks kinda works
+ <teythoon> as in I get notified when a new task is created
+ <teythoon> but the ports for the new task and the parent that are carried
+ in the notification are both MACH_PORT_DEAD
+ <teythoon> do I have to add a reference manually before sending it?
+ <teythoon> that would make sense, the mig magic transformation function for
+ task_t consumes a reference iirc
+ <braunr> ah yes
+ <braunr> that reference counting stuff is some hell
+ <teythoon> braunr: ah, there's more though, the mig transformations are
+ only done in the server stub, not in the client, so I still have to
+ convert_task_to_port myself afaics
+ <teythoon> awesome, it works :)
+ <braunr> :)
+ <teythoon> ugh, the proc_child stuff is embedded deep into libc and signal
+ handling stuff...
+ <teythoon> "improving" the child_proc stuff with my shiny new notifications
+ wrecks havoc on the system
+
+
# Required Interfaces
In the thread starting