From owner-freebsd-stable Tue Dec 28 14:29:18 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from luna.lyris.net (luna.shelby.com [207.90.155.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF24A1555B; Tue, 28 Dec 1999 14:29:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kip@lyris.com) Received: from luna.shelby.com by luna.lyris.net (8.9.1b+Sun/SMI-SVR4) id OAA04014; Tue, 28 Dec 1999 14:28:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from (luna.shelby.com [207.90.155.6]) by luna.shelby.com with SMTP (MailShield v1.50); Tue, 28 Dec 1999 14:28:54 -0800 Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 14:28:54 -0800 (PST) From: Kip Macy To: Vivek Khera Cc: Mike Smith , stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: panic In-Reply-To: <14440.52608.752256.799982@onceler.kcilink.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-SMTP-HELO: luna X-SMTP-MAIL-FROM: kip@lyris.com X-SMTP-RCPT-TO: khera@kciLink.com,msmith@freebsd.org,stable@freebsd.org X-SMTP-PEER-INFO: luna.shelby.com [207.90.155.6] Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 28 Dec 1999, Vivek Khera wrote: > >>>>> "MS" == Mike Smith writes: > > >> FreeBSD has a tendency to panic in out of mbuf situations. That > >> shouldn't happen. > > MS> The semantics of "should" and "shouldn't" are debatable. In this case, > MS> the panic is a simple indicator that the administrator hasn't correctly > MS> tuned the system. Many would argue that this is a much better outcome > MS> than a system that performs poorly for no immediately perceptible reason, > MS> and it certainly encourages the prompt application of a correct > MS> adjustment. > > I come from the school of thought that nothing should make the system > crash. It should try its hardest to handle the workload thrown at it. > Under no circumstances is a panic acceptable. The system should at > worst drop some connections and issue a warning, or plod through and > issue a warning. Kernel panic is *never* the right thing to do, and > should be considered an error in the kernel. > > It is this kind of cavalier attitude towards system problems that > makes people scared of using open source systems. > I think it is ultimately a religious issue and not a customer issue which is why FreeBSD has the strengths that it does and the weaknesses that it does. David Greenman backed me up when I said the same thing. However, there are numerous others in the FreeBSD group who believe that it is the users' responsibility. -Kip To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message