Ben Reser <ben_at_reser.org> writes:
>> I think part of the problem here has been we (as in WANdisco folks) have
>> discussed the idea of an instance ID for repositories in the past to solve
>> the range of replacing the repository without clearing the cache issues.
>> But this change is being added for a very different reason.
>>
>> Evgeny has implemented the instance ID for the purpose of solving the problem
>> of two different repositories not being able to be locked if they happen to
>> have the same UUID. This happens because we use a mutex to handle locking
>> between threads and that mutex can't distinguish between different
>> repositories with identical UUIDs.
>>
>> Currently the code on trunk adds the instance ID to the cache keys. I'm not
>> sure we should be doing that (though both brane and stefan2 requested that be
>> done). As per the discussion today at the SHF hackathon the instance ID
>> can't resolve the failure to clear the cache issues. The best it can do is
>> narrow the window for these issues to exist. That would seem like a good
>> thing but I think it creates a huge false sense of security. We will
>> ultimately have someone that comes along with a corrupted repository, we're
>> going to say you replaced the repo while the server was running and the user
>> is going to say "But I've been doing this for years without any problem."
>>
>> Without the instance ID in the cache keys users are unlikely to actually
>> corrupt their repository (just like they would be with them, it's a pretty
>> hard race to hit). But they are likely to get errors related to the cache
>> being stale. This gives them a giant hint that what they're doing is wrong
>> and gives us an opportunity to educate them.
>
> Evgeny do you have any thoughts on this? I think it's probably best to remove
> the instance id from the cache keys. I believe brane and stefan2 were
> convinced of this at the hackathon.
Sounds good to me.
However, prior to (re-)narrowing the scope of this change, I would love to
spend a bit of time and actually reproduce the repository corruption race (with
or without instance IDs) — just in order to obtain a bit of information, which
I currently lack. I plan to undo the corresponding part of the changeset right
after that.
Regards,
Evgeny Kotkov
Received on 2014-09-03 01:25:10 CEST