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Is it time to fork Debian?

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Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 2, Informative)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-19 18:37 (#2TFW)

I object to the frequently repeated assertion that system admins don't want systemd, and that it only benefits desktop users.

SysVinit scripts don't have any way to restart services that have quit/crashed. That is EXTREMELY important on servers, and it's absence is a notable missing feature on Linux. There are various add-ons that do this, like daemontools, but they can't replace SysVinit, so you're stuck maintaining two mutually incompatible methods for running services.

I don't care about boot-up times, but not being able to have all system services automatically restarted (without human intervention at 3am), should anything happen to them, is a glaring failure on Linux, putting it a couple decades behind its competitors.

Debugging a system, and/or rebooting it every time it comes up but a network file system didn't mount in-time... Getting paged at 3AM every day, because after 2 years of uptime, crond happened to crash and across hundreds of servers that's a daily occurrence... etc. These are all very important to any server admins, and hardly matter to desktop users.

And to preempt the common responses:

You would NOT want to be paged at 3am just because crond crashed after 2 years of uptime. It's crazy to claim someone needs to investigate every such happenstance. It's also crazy to claim you should rewrite all your startup scripts so every system service is run out of daemontools. After all.. ANY service that you need running is "critical" and failure can't be ignored. Right now, these system restarts are typically performed by poorly-paid NOC personnel, who understand less about the services in question than systemd does. And needing to have NOC folks working around the clock is prohibitive for small shops (who have system admins who would like to sleep through the night) and increases the TCO for large shops, who made need a large number of NOC employees because restarting services becomes a full-time job to the exclusion of other job duties, given enough servers.

Automatic service restarts are perfectly safe. If there was any such issue, it would be looming over daemontools since forever, and the widespread adoption of systemd by every distro out there just serves to show the experts just might know something. Those claiming systemd is bad and useless have to come up with vast conspiracy theories to explain away the enthusiastic and widespread adoption.

I hate to jump into the systemd flame war yet again, where typically the least-informed and least affected shout the loudest. After all, there's no benefit to interrupting the detractors, because every distro out there is already on the side of systemd, and the ranting and moaning on sites like this won't change that.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 3, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-19 20:29 (#2TG1)

SysVinit scripts don't have any way to restart services that have quit/crashed. That is EXTREMELY important on servers, and it's absence is a notable missing feature on Linux.
When a daemon crashes on a production server, we want to know why. We investigate and fix the problem before restarting.
ANY service that you need running is "critical" and failure can't be ignored. Right now, these system restarts are typically performed by poorly-paid NOC personnel, who understand less about the services in question than systemd does
Funny... the only time I ever needed data center staff to intervene was after a botched systemd "upgrade".
Automatic service restarts are perfectly safe
Simple minded nonsense that will be easily countered by the first 0day exploit that takes advantage of it.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 2, Insightful)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-19 23:15 (#2TG5)

When a daemon crashes on a production server, we want to know why. We investigate and fix the problem before restarting.
Already addressed this nonsense, TWICE, in my post. Try again.
Funny... the only time I ever needed data center staff to intervene was after a botched systemd "upgrade".
A NOC isn't datacenter staff.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-20 00:15 (#2TG7)

No, but a NOC is the sysadmins' software "Hands and Eyes". If they're too stupid to do the work necessary, maybe you should pay them more?

If something is crashing on a production server you have fucked up. The end. Production isn't for testing, it's for stable code. The only exemption is if your production network is *so* big that it allows you to segment parts of it for testing, in which case you're accepting that things might break, so you can't really complain about being woken up at 3am to fix a broken service.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 3, Insightful)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-20 00:21 (#2TG8)

If something is crashing on a production server you have fucked up
Utter nonsense. You're just a kid with a linux box who has no large-scale experience but wants to pretend to be an expert on the internet. EVERYTHING crashes over a long enough time-frame. The most uber-stable and basic simple system software will eventually crash. Across enough servers, you'll see it happening daily.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-20 01:14 (#2TGB)

ep, you do know we're not all the same AC, right?

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 2, Insightful)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-20 01:29 (#2TGC)

I am referring to the claims of that specific AC, yes.

I tend to disregard ACs in general. Back on /. I'd set my preferences to not see their comments unless significantly modded-up, nor ever get notifications about replies from them.

Even a pseudonym keeps people much more honest and polite, and certainly makes for a better community. It's unfortunate that ACs make up such a big proportion of commentators here... People not willing to even minimally stand behind what they say.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 3, Funny)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-10-20 02:27 (#2TGE)

What?! You mean Evil Viper isn't your real name?!

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-20 03:32 (#2TGG)

Not terribly happy with the name, but had it forever so I keep using it on /. spin-off sites.

I certainly wouldn't want all my late night (and possibly drunken) rants and shouting matches, or all the times I've played devils advocate in a discussion over the past 20 years, to show up (out of context) in a job interview, ALL needing to be explained. So using a real name on most discussion sites just doesn't work for me.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 2, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-20 08:12 (#2TGM)

So you've nicely explained EXACTLY why some of us choose to be ACs some, or in my case, all the time. Surely you see that? In your case your handle is you online. Establishing a record that can be easily linked back to you through a single slip isn't much better than not using a handle at all. Might as well succumb to Facebook style real names.

Again, I think the ACs here are particularly polite and cogent (or at least the moderation has made it seem that way), whereas I've found the registered posters less so.

Also, for some reason I have thought until just now that your name was "evilPiper" for some reason, which makes even LESS sense than your actual handle that bryan just pointed out. :)

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-20 13:10 (#2TGP)

Establishing a record that can be easily linked back to you through a single slip isn't much better than not using a handle at all.
You don't need to keep the same one for 20+ years like me, the barrier is quite low. Besides, it's extremely easy not to let personally identifying information slip... Unless you're Hodor.
Again, I think the ACs here are particularly polite and cogent
Ugg... Polite and cogent like him?:

https://pipedot.org/comment/2TD2

I'd go at it from the opposite direction, and say it's rare to see real information or insights from ACs. There isn't a lot of trolling and flaming in general because |. is still a small site. As it gets bigger, I have no doubt the ACs will be just as irritating as on other sites.

Re: Benefits servers and system admins the most (Score: 3, Interesting)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-10-20 17:25 (#2TH2)

I'm not sure when it started, but I feel that pipedot comments have gotten more venomous over the past weeks... And I see a lot of ACs replying in a really rude way, who still get modded up somehow.

I don't care how right you may be. You don't have to be an asshole about it.

Moderation

Time Reason Points Voter
2014-10-21 01:06 Interesting +1 evilviper@pipedot.org
2014-10-29 04:58 Insightful +1 stove@pipedot.org

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