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RH7 Crashes In Three Weeks (But Fixed)
Herz writes: "I got this email today from Red Hat. RH7 will crash out of the box in 3 weeks! The new Update Agent provided with Red Hat Linux 7.0 contains a daemon, rhnsd, which periodically polls Red Hat Network for updates. This daemon leaks file descriptors. On a default installation, all available file descriptors will be used by rhnsd in approximately three weeks, making the system unusable." The Red Hat folks have also provided a fix, though -- updated packages for those who want to use their update network, and the two-line method of disabling per machine for those who don't. After all, everyone wants uptime > 3 weeks, eh? And you don't need to wait for a "service pack," either.
...the win95 "43 day" bug... where it would crash exactly after 43 days...
They never introduced a fix... the sheer idea of running win95 for 43 days was silly, even to MS.
BlackNova Traders
I think somethings nutty, my comment disappeared.
Anyway, my whole "-1, Flamebait" comment was:
Are you installing RH7 on production machines the day it comes out? Are you INSANE? Look, its a bug. They have a fix. So patch the TEST MACHINES you're running RH7 on, so you can work out the bugs, migration path, and eratta, and get on with your life! You ARE running this on test machines, right? You are planning a migration to RH7, not just popping the CD into your mission-critical servers, right? You are following good sysadmin practices, right?
Just because they rushed the release doesn't mean you have to take it. Take your time and be smart.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Actually you bring up a valid question, with regards to slashdot anyways. If Win2K had this bug it would certainly been on slahsdot, and met with much approval. Many MS friendly posters will go on about how slashdot is biased and unfair towards MS, well, posting this story pretty much lets RH have the MS treatment. Seems fair enough to me.
Now with regards to the bug, I think the obvious fix is to simply kill -9 rhnsd. There ya go, bug fixed. Yes it's a serious bug, but it's hardly a service that any production server needs so it's a non-issue in my mind. If you are running a serious server you are probably not going to let the the software update itself. You are going to get it up, apply any security patches that come out, and lock it in a closet somewhere. The "idea" that you must be running the most current version of software is a marketing ploy (which MS does very well) and is hogwash. If you have software that meets your needs and is stable and secure you certainly don't want to screw it up by randomly updating it.
I think it was poor of RH not to actually test this properly, but I also understand that this is partly just the nature of the beast. They feel that they must move forward at a fast pace and this is the result.
No, this is important to know.
/. readers. (obviously not all /. readers use linux, and not all linuxers use redhat, but the population is still going to be quite large.)
:-)
Redhat dominates the Linux market. This affects a LOT of
As well, I think politically it's probably a good idea to be public about this kind of bug. Linux has a rep of being extremely reliable. I, for one, would like to keep it that way, and bugs that affect reliability thus NEED TO BE very embarassing events. Trying to suppress this kind of news may make Linux APPEAR more reliable but actually BE less reliable -- a lose-lose situation for sure.
After all, if Sendmail suddenly started crashing every two weeks, the community would be justifiably furious about it. I don't think it's unreasonable to hold Redhat to a similar standard. They have an enormous advantage over Microsoft by packaging all the Open Source stuff instead of writing it themselves. Seems to me that expecting really good QA on their internally-written software is quite reasonable.
You can bet that if Microsoft had released Win2K with a bug that took it down after two weeks it would have made national news. And Slashdot.
Most of posters stating that they do actually use RH 7 seem quite happy about it, noticing that it is even more stable than RH 5.0 or 6.0 ever were. Most of the bad press on
So, chances are that you should trust /. a little less and learn from your own experience by trying it... In my experience, it is better than all previous RH releases; the way it should be.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
The leak is in The Update Manager. If you're not running the update manager, you don't have a problem and the system won't go down. If you ARE running the Update Manager - well, it'll just automatically get the update from RedHat, won't it? Assuming that part works, anyway...
That's why you use cron instead of writing a long-running daemon.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Woke up this morning
Crawled out of bed
Couldn't wait to get that Red Hat distro you said
Told you to worry
Told you to wait
But no you want to mirror it from outside the state
Refrain
I got the blues
Got them old dot zero blues
Cause I done installed that distro
And it blew up on my shoes
Wish I had DSL
Wish I had fat pipes
But on a 56K modem
The download's such a fright
It's all installed now
Servers up and cool
But I come back three weeks later
And look just like a fool
Refrain
Got burned by Compaq
Got burned by Dell
Got burned by Microsoft
Now I'm in Red Hat dot zero hell
Refrain
Now don't you worry
This one's ok
It won't drop under loads now
Cause if it does we'll make you pay!
Refrain
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Naah, they just ran out of file descriptors and had to remove the story from the front page list :-P