rpc.kstatd: Remote Kstat Access Service [PSARC/2008/502 FastTrack timeout 08/13/2008]

[James Carlson]

Nicolas Williams writes:
> On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 01:32:38PM -0400, James Carlson wrote:
> > As long as there's no identification of the specific data needed,
> > there's no good way to enumerate what needs to be nailed down.  Either
> > the documentation for this new feature needs to point out the risks
> > inherent in relying on the data without specific documentation of the
> > stability of the kstats in use, or a different solution is needed.
> 
> I agree.  But shouldn't the same apply to all local consumers of kstats
> that aren't in the same consolidation as the producers?

Yes.  They're not documented.

The risks are just worse with a network-based service, as you've got
no guarantee that all of the systems on the network are upgraded in
lock-step, nor really any way to make any such guarantee because you
don't have access to the package versioning information.  And that
ignores the sorts of asynchronous errors and events that can happen on
networks that can't happen on a local system (without everyone
suffering the same fate).

Networking is just plain harder than local access.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive        71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677