KaosBSD method of hibernation in the OS, hardware not required.
My method is to use status files which detail the work a process is doing, this ensures that the memory state is irrelevant to restoring an app.
] shawarma asks: "Due to a recent power outage, I've had to shut down a server running a process that had been running for ages calculating something. The job it was doing would have been done in a few days, I think, but I had to shut it down before the UPS ran out of juice.
Maybe you should use solar as a backup UPS or hydrogen fuel cells.
] This got me thinking: Why can't I freeze down the process and thaw it back up at a later time? It ought to be possible to take all the connected memory pages and save them in some way, preserve file handles and pointers, and everything. Maybe net-connections would die, but that's understandable.
Time for you to read my notes on KaosBSD, it has a built in autosave which records the state of the programs it's running.
] Has any work been done in this field? If not, shouldn't there be? I'd like to contribute in some way, but I think it's a bit over my head.."
Just leave a note in my Journal or email me if you want something done.
] Laptops have been doing this in some form for years: most laptops, when they run out of power, or when told by the user will go into "suspend" mode which is similar to what the poster is describing, however outside of laptops, I haven't seen this done. Sleeping processes also do something similar, sending their memory pages into swap so other running processes can use the memory. What, if anything, is preventing someone from taking this a step further?
I'm already doing this in KAOS, but it's different from suspend or sleep because it uses a status file to track the processes of every program.
This lets individual agents of any app crash and the other agents pickup what that agent was doing and keep your work, you don't lose it.
Say you're writing a report and the agent crashes, you might lose about a minutes work (depending on the autosave rate) instead of the hours you would lose by not saving in MS office.
Or maybe you're running a web browser with a dozen tabs on a window, then that agent crashes. You can then choose to start a new window with all those tabs loaded with the pages you were surfing, which is way better than trying to reload a browser by the history logs.
] by sklib: It's not possible to hibernate a single process.
Maybe not in windows, but KAOS can hibernate a single process. You can pause it and then save the state file or hibernate which saves the state then quits.
] During thawing, to restore the process's memory structure, one would have to do one of two things: Either put the process *exactly* where it was before in system memory, which may not be possible because other programs (perhaps even the OS?) are running in that memory space now.
My system is different, it uses status files that say what it's doing. It wouldn't need to wrry about the memory use.
The other option is to reallocate new memory for the process, and then go through and fix every pointer in the process to point to new memory locations. I will remind you that this is not possible, because processes can do very strange things with pointers and it's not possible to keep track of all of them from the object code side.
The need to reallocate new memory is not a concern if you uses status files.
] Now, if the process could hibernate itself... well that's the same as hitting Save, and Exit in any program.
Which is why I have put hibernate in KAOS, I'm sick and tired of losing track of websites I'm surfing then trying to reload from history.
] So the only problem here is that programs that take weeks and/or months to compute stuff need to be written in such a way that you can save every once in a while, so when the power DOES go out, you don't lose that much of what you've processed.
Actually it's easier to write the OS so that programs autosave to a status file about once a minute regardless of if they are surfing websites or looking for little green men.
] In my opinion OS-level hibernation (which already exists for many windows versions, and seems like it should exist for those big mainframes) coupled with some smart programming (no intractable problems here)
I'm programming KaosBSD which can run on anything OpenBSD knows about and maybe port it to some of the things NetBSD supports.
The smart programming is the status manager which all apps can use to autosave.
This is part of the unique way that apps run as part of the system. It can also offer other app services inside your app.
The best example is the calculator, it can popup as a panel you use in any app.
] would put a thorough end to these shenanigans with losing months of processing time just because the power went out 5 minutes before it finished.
Yes, I've run Seti@home and had that happen dozens of times. It always annoys me to see a day of processing go down the drain.
The All Blacks play better rugby than australia does.
The Black Caps win a few in a row and that's luck?
Anyway, the captain of the Black Caps doesn't chase after nurses for sex and hasn't been swearing to kids when caught smoking.
Broadband is better by price and speed in NZ, even if you had the price in NZ$ it would be better than australia.
The thing is TelstraClear (Saturn TV cable network) is the small competitor to Telecom NZ, they have to do good deals compared to Telstra in Australia (Telstra is the dominant company in australia)
As for taxes, we had the flat 12.5 % GST for a decadse before the australians started theirs.
They screwed up in the senate, so you have basic foods exempt and some foods not.
Their GST is very complicated to work out what is covered and by how much.
NZ has higher corporate taxes, but australia has higher personal taxes on the rich (50%).
In australia, there are wireless network organisations that try to get around the expensive telco's.
NZ internet charges are not that bad to bother with alternative wireless networks.
If it's not doomed, then why do you mention bands that suck?
Not everyone likes to listen to bands full of old farts who whine about the good old days of the eighties.
BTW, I think there's room for a fileswap protocol which lets you choose what type of file to trade, to get it from a local source, what speed to get it at, etc.
which is why I'm programming Samizdat, a reliable protocol which can get chunks of files from multiple sources, not just one user.
The point of using a specific content format is to control the whole process. I did a project that was designed to lock up PNGs of corporate logos, etc. 4 years ago.
It was a Java viewer just for logos so people couldn't mess with the brand.
The company I was doing it for nicked the project, but I left a great big security flaw in the random numbers part (it uses IP addresses).
The dumb thing is, they made a banking site 3 months after they finished the viewer project.
Then in April 2000, I found a gang of script kiddies in my town (Wellington, New Zealand).
They told me about DOSing Yahoo and a few other web portals and offered me 5% to break the bank for them.
I sent the cheapskates to the secret service who were trying to recruit me at the time.
I'm also shocked at how cynical the typical slashdotter is: they believe that linux is the One True Operating System while berating microsoft for having a monopoly, they believe the lies of JonKatz and CmdrTaco, they even believe the GPL is about free speech when it's really just a socialist dream of some lunatic chimp called RMS.
Now that I've got that out of my system, I'm interested in taking requests for a new kind of filesharing network protocol called Samizdat.
(read the dictionary for the explanation)
Personally, I don't give a damn what is being traded as long as it works for you.
BTW, I couldn't give a damn about your free trading bands as I have yet to hear anything good from them. Maybe that's why they don't bother printing CDs, who would buy them?
And before you accuse me of being a pop fan, I've been into Rock, Heavy metal and Rap since 1985 and I never listen to the radio.
Face it, a lot of people are annoyed with the lack of balance displayed by slashdot editors.
Nothing is interesting about hearing the latest linux non event.
Personally, I believe the GPL is worse than the microsoft EULA because at least MS pays it's programmers for their hard work.
I object to the notion that people have to give away code on projects which may be worthy of commercial development.
All that does is ensure software engineers like myself never code for linux.
And before you think I don't know what I'm talking about, I've used every major OS since 1980 and have programmed on most since 1985.
I'm even writing my own BSD system, not GNU because I want to keep my property in my hands. I have no objection to letting others work with me, I just don't want some lamer to go fork off with my code and a crummy app like that OpenBSD gimp Darren.
I think slashdot needs to reform, before someone starts a better slash site.
I think you'll find any algorithm approved by the NSA or the GCHQ as a public standard is already broken.
DES & AES are good examples of this.
Germany would be better off with blowfish for now.
I am working on an encryptioon system which is good enough for official documents, but the hardware interaction and software will take a year to complete at this rate.
I'm more than willing to sell my crypto to germany, possibly through my friends who live there.
If this happens for 10 other software components and 11 distributions of each then we have linux.
OS X is running on FreeBSD, it lacks some of the security OpenBSD has.
FWIW, I am forking OpenBSD into KaosBSD.
KAOS has a different kernel architecture and a whole new app structure.
I think about 2 or 3 dozen apps which are either new or significantly improved is justification for a fork that does more for the user.
Good idea, AOL may do this.
AOL has been rumored to want RedHat and now they are suing microsoft.
If AOL start releasing free CDs of RedHat linux with netscape / mozilla built in for AOL access and staroffice, they take on microsoft for free in the OS and office areas microsoft can't afford to make free.
This is a good tactic to use as it is microsoft's standard plan for dominance in a place where they can't use it.
BTW, it's also part of my personal plan for KaosBSD. The OS is almost free, but the selling point is the killer apps that are a free part of the system.
The unique way KAOS apps run is the big advantage, the apps can't crash.
Can anyone say the same for microsoft or apache?
He's not the only one, I'm forking OpenBSD to work on KaosBSD which has a totally different kernel structure and application system.
the good thing is all of OpenBSD works under it sort of like OS X and FreeBSD.
I'm planning to release some of my custom software to OpenBSD and Java2 later.
BTW, you just described linux. Why didn't slashdot moderate you to troll?
This is good timing, I've been wondering what was wrong with the OpenBSD install on my HD.
It's a Slave IDE HD so I guess that's the reason the partition isn't working.
BTW, glad to hear from someone else in the Wellington region BOFH.
Incidently, 10 July is my birthday and 9 July is my cousin's. If I had known that in 1998, I would be far further in my KaosBSD project by now.
Don't forget that OpenBSD started after Theo got pissed off at someone on FreeBSD and then got removed from #2 submitter to mere code contributer.
OpenBSD started because Theo got hacked by a FreeBSD programmer who didn't want Theo to have email copies of this demotion.
I don't know Theo personally, but I think he's allowed to have a competitive personality if he does the great work he does.
Personally I'm working on a brand new BSD, KaosBSD based on OpenBSD. I want to use existing encryption for now until I get my cryptoscheme going.
The goals of KAOS is Speed, Security & Simplicity. I am willing to contribute most of my work back to OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.
BSD can support another fork, especially if it brings in cutting edge technology that no other system has yet.
AU$90 for 3gig of traffic?
I pay NZ$80 for 10giginternational per month.
That's AU$12 less for 3 1/3 times as much.
You can't argue that NZ has a better infrastructure than OZ but you can only say Telstra OZ is ripping you off.
I'm using TelstraClear (was TelstraSaturn) in wellington and I think it's ridiculous to pay more for broadband in a city which has the population of NZ.
It's funny, I'm an Australian citizen and a New Zealand citizen.
whenever I go to australia I always find that they only have a few better things there and everything else sucks.
TV there sucks unless you get cable or satellite. All the news has to have a blonde bimbo to read it. The PM has to get on 1 item of news every night.
Australian beer costs more in australia than it does in new zealand, then again our beer is better. So is our cricket team and our football team.
Australians have worse animals, politicians and internet.
Broadband there costs 2 to 3 times as much as NZ broadband even though Telstra is an aussie company and they have 7 times as many people to make broadband profitable.
Australia also takes a backwards approach to technology compared to new zealand, NZ typically uses cutting edge technology first then australia picks it up when NZ has proven it's use.
The best part of australia is the jobs market and the winter weather. I would not go there for any other reason.
Don't you know that the rules of slashdot state that the editors drool over each and every linux non event?
I predict this is going to be an underrated discussion because not only is this article written by a linux person, it's also about the evil of microsoft.
I hate MS as much as linux zealots do, but I don't care about the hassle of using another OS as crummy as what MS makes even if it's free.
Slashdot Mirror
KaosBSD method of hibernation in the OS, hardware not required.
My method is to use status files which detail the work a process is doing, this ensures that the memory state is irrelevant to restoring an app.
The job it was doing would have been done in a few days, I think, but I had to shut it down before the UPS ran out of juice.
Maybe you should use solar as a backup UPS or hydrogen fuel cells.
] This got me thinking: Why can't I freeze down the process and thaw it back up at a later time?
It ought to be possible to take all the connected memory pages and save them in some way, preserve file handles and pointers, and everything.
Maybe net-connections would die, but that's understandable.
Time for you to read my notes on KaosBSD, it has a built in autosave which records the state of the programs it's running.
] Has any work been done in this field? If not, shouldn't there be? I'd like to contribute in some way, but I think it's a bit over my head.."
Just leave a note in my Journal or email me if you want something done.
] Laptops have been doing this in some form for years: most laptops, when they run out of power, or when told by the user will go into "suspend" mode which is similar to what the poster is describing, however outside of laptops, I haven't seen this done.
Sleeping processes also do something similar, sending their memory pages into swap so other running processes can use the memory. What, if anything, is preventing someone from taking this a step further?
I'm already doing this in KAOS, but it's different from suspend or sleep because it uses a status file to track the processes of every program.
This lets individual agents of any app crash and the other agents pickup what that agent was doing and keep your work, you don't lose it.
Say you're writing a report and the agent crashes, you might lose about a minutes work (depending on the autosave rate) instead of the hours you would lose by not saving in MS office.
Or maybe you're running a web browser with a dozen tabs on a window, then that agent crashes. You can then choose to start a new window with all those tabs loaded with the pages you were surfing, which is way better than trying to reload a browser by the history logs.
] by sklib: It's not possible to hibernate a single process. Maybe not in windows, but KAOS can hibernate a single process. You can pause it and then save the state file or hibernate which saves the state then quits.
] During thawing, to restore the process's memory structure, one would have to do one of two things: Either put the process *exactly* where it was before in system memory, which may not be possible because other programs (perhaps even the OS?) are running in that memory space now.
My system is different, it uses status files that say what it's doing. It wouldn't need to wrry about the memory use.
The other option is to reallocate new memory for the process, and then go through and fix every pointer in the process to point to new memory locations. I will remind you that this is not possible, because processes can do very strange things with pointers and it's not possible to keep track of all of them from the object code side.
The need to reallocate new memory is not a concern if you uses status files.
] Now, if the process could hibernate itself... well that's the same as hitting Save, and Exit in any program.
Which is why I have put hibernate in KAOS, I'm sick and tired of losing track of websites I'm surfing then trying to reload from history.
] So the only problem here is that programs that take weeks and/or months to compute stuff need to be written in such a way that you can save every once in a while, so when the power DOES go out, you don't lose that much of what you've processed.
Actually it's easier to write the OS so that programs autosave to a status file about once a minute regardless of if they are surfing websites or looking for little green men.
] In my opinion OS-level hibernation (which already exists for many windows versions, and seems like it should exist for those big mainframes) coupled with some smart programming (no intractable problems here)
I'm programming KaosBSD which can run on anything OpenBSD knows about and maybe port it to some of the things NetBSD supports.
The smart programming is the status manager which all apps can use to autosave.
This is part of the unique way that apps run as part of the system. It can also offer other app services inside your app.
The best example is the calculator, it can popup as a panel you use in any app.
] would put a thorough end to these shenanigans with losing months of processing time just because the power went out 5 minutes before it finished.
Yes, I've run Seti@home and had that happen dozens of times. It always annoys me to see a day of processing go down the drain.
That's me, my balls hang down by my socks.
Damn sucky internet exploder.
The All Blacks play better rugby than australia does.
The Black Caps win a few in a row and that's luck?
Anyway, the captain of the Black Caps doesn't chase after nurses for sex and hasn't been swearing to kids when caught smoking.
Broadband is better by price and speed in NZ, even if you had the price in NZ$ it would be better than australia.
The thing is TelstraClear (Saturn TV cable network) is the small competitor to Telecom NZ, they have to do good deals compared to Telstra in Australia (Telstra is the dominant company in australia)
As for taxes, we had the flat 12.5 % GST for a decadse before the australians started theirs.
They screwed up in the senate, so you have basic foods exempt and some foods not.
Their GST is very complicated to work out what is covered and by how much.
NZ has higher corporate taxes, but australia has higher personal taxes on the rich (50%).
In australia, there are wireless network organisations that try to get around the expensive telco's.
NZ internet charges are not that bad to bother with alternative wireless networks.
GOD DAMN INTERNET EXPLODER!
Fuck microsoft, always lose text when you want to see it...
If it's not doomed, then why do you mention bands that suck?
Not everyone likes to listen to bands full of old farts who whine about the good old days of the eighties.
BTW, I think there's room for a fileswap protocol which lets you choose what type of file to trade, to get it from a local source, what speed to get it at, etc.
which is why I'm programming Samizdat, a reliable protocol which can get chunks of files from multiple sources, not just one user.
The point of using a specific content format is to control the whole process.
I did a project that was designed to lock up PNGs of corporate logos, etc. 4 years ago. It was a Java viewer just for logos so people couldn't mess with the brand.
The company I was doing it for nicked the project, but I left a great big security flaw in the random numbers part (it uses IP addresses).
The dumb thing is, they made a banking site 3 months after they finished the viewer project.
Then in April 2000, I found a gang of script kiddies in my town (Wellington, New Zealand).
They told me about DOSing Yahoo and a few other web portals and offered me 5% to break the bank for them.
I sent the cheapskates to the secret service who were trying to recruit me at the time.
I'm also shocked at how cynical the typical slashdotter is: they believe that linux is the One True Operating System while berating microsoft for having a monopoly, they believe the lies of JonKatz and CmdrTaco, they even believe the GPL is about free speech when it's really just a socialist dream of some lunatic chimp called RMS.
Now that I've got that out of my system, I'm interested in taking requests for a new kind of filesharing network protocol called Samizdat.
(read the dictionary for the explanation)
Personally, I don't give a damn what is being traded as long as it works for you.
BTW, I couldn't give a damn about your free trading bands as I have yet to hear anything good from them. Maybe that's why they don't bother printing CDs, who would buy them?
And before you accuse me of being a pop fan, I've been into Rock, Heavy metal and Rap since 1985 and I never listen to the radio.
So who's the person in NZ you're talking about?
BTW, thank you for being a helpful troll.
Have you ever wondered why trolls are more help on slashdot than any of the editors?
Does the truth hurt this moderator?
Face it, a lot of people are annoyed with the lack of balance displayed by slashdot editors.
Nothing is interesting about hearing the latest linux non event.
Personally, I believe the GPL is worse than the microsoft EULA because at least MS pays it's programmers for their hard work.
I object to the notion that people have to give away code on projects which may be worthy of commercial development.
All that does is ensure software engineers like myself never code for linux.
And before you think I don't know what I'm talking about, I've used every major OS since 1980 and have programmed on most since 1985.
I'm even writing my own BSD system, not GNU because I want to keep my property in my hands. I have no objection to letting others work with me, I just don't want some lamer to go fork off with my code and a crummy app like that OpenBSD gimp Darren.
I think slashdot needs to reform, before someone starts a better slash site.
As a kiwi, I am most impressed...
Where is this chick? She can play with my balls anyday...
Jehovah's Witness church did nothing to stop pervert, even promoted him to elder.
I think you'll find any algorithm approved by the NSA or the GCHQ as a public standard is already broken.
DES & AES are good examples of this.
Germany would be better off with blowfish for now.
I am working on an encryptioon system which is good enough for official documents, but the hardware interaction and software will take a year to complete at this rate.
I'm more than willing to sell my crypto to germany, possibly through my friends who live there.
> Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
Even better, try to get a multiprocessor version of OpenBSD.
If this happens for 10 other software components and 11 distributions of each then we have linux.
OS X is running on FreeBSD, it lacks some of the security OpenBSD has.
FWIW, I am forking OpenBSD into KaosBSD.
KAOS has a different kernel architecture and a whole new app structure.
I think about 2 or 3 dozen apps which are either new or significantly improved is justification for a fork that does more for the user.
Good idea, AOL may do this.
AOL has been rumored to want RedHat and now they are suing microsoft.
If AOL start releasing free CDs of RedHat linux with netscape / mozilla built in for AOL access and staroffice, they take on microsoft for free in the OS and office areas microsoft can't afford to make free.
This is a good tactic to use as it is microsoft's standard plan for dominance in a place where they can't use it.
BTW, it's also part of my personal plan for KaosBSD. The OS is almost free, but the selling point is the killer apps that are a free part of the system.
The unique way KAOS apps run is the big advantage, the apps can't crash.
Can anyone say the same for microsoft or apache?
He's not the only one, I'm forking OpenBSD to work on KaosBSD which has a totally different kernel structure and application system.
the good thing is all of OpenBSD works under it sort of like OS X and FreeBSD.
I'm planning to release some of my custom software to OpenBSD and Java2 later.
BTW, you just described linux. Why didn't slashdot moderate you to troll?
This is good timing, I've been wondering what was wrong with the OpenBSD install on my HD.
It's a Slave IDE HD so I guess that's the reason the partition isn't working.
BTW, glad to hear from someone else in the Wellington region BOFH.
Incidently, 10 July is my birthday and 9 July is my cousin's. If I had known that in 1998, I would be far further in my KaosBSD project by now.
Considering that OS X is based on FreeBSD and there is a new fork in progress (my KaosBSD) that has stuff no other system has yet.
A rewrite of most of the OS should help speed things up a lot but security should be kept a goal.
Don't forget that OpenBSD started after Theo got pissed off at someone on FreeBSD and then got removed from #2 submitter to mere code contributer.
OpenBSD started because Theo got hacked by a FreeBSD programmer who didn't want Theo to have email copies of this demotion.
I don't know Theo personally, but I think he's allowed to have a competitive personality if he does the great work he does.
Personally I'm working on a brand new BSD, KaosBSD based on OpenBSD. I want to use existing encryption for now until I get my cryptoscheme going.
The goals of KAOS is Speed, Security & Simplicity. I am willing to contribute most of my work back to OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.
BSD can support another fork, especially if it brings in cutting edge technology that no other system has yet.
You want your own release?
I'm writing my own BSD pretty much from scratch. Put that in your | and smoke it.
AU$90 for 3gig of traffic?
I pay NZ$80 for 10giginternational per month.
That's AU$12 less for 3 1/3 times as much.
You can't argue that NZ has a better infrastructure than OZ but you can only say Telstra OZ is ripping you off.
I'm using TelstraClear (was TelstraSaturn) in wellington and I think it's ridiculous to pay more for broadband in a city which has the population of NZ.
It's funny, I'm an Australian citizen and a New Zealand citizen.
whenever I go to australia I always find that they only have a few better things there and everything else sucks.
TV there sucks unless you get cable or satellite. All the news has to have a blonde bimbo to read it. The PM has to get on 1 item of news every night.
Australian beer costs more in australia than it does in new zealand, then again our beer is better. So is our cricket team and our football team.
Australians have worse animals, politicians and internet.
Broadband there costs 2 to 3 times as much as NZ broadband even though Telstra is an aussie company and they have 7 times as many people to make broadband profitable.
Australia also takes a backwards approach to technology compared to new zealand, NZ typically uses cutting edge technology first then australia picks it up when NZ has proven it's use.
The best part of australia is the jobs market and the winter weather. I would not go there for any other reason.
Don't you know that the rules of slashdot state that the editors drool over each and every linux non event?
I predict this is going to be an underrated discussion because not only is this article written by a linux person, it's also about the evil of microsoft.
I hate MS as much as linux zealots do, but I don't care about the hassle of using another OS as crummy as what MS makes even if it's free.