RH7 Crashes In Three Weeks (But Fixed) 301
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.
Isn't It Ironic... Don't You Think? (Score:1)
If only the fix had been released earlier, perhaps the Update Agent could have repaired itself before anyone knew anything was amiss.
Re:adjusted lameness index (Score:1)
Re:Ok, whats the deal. (Score:2)
Re:Why am I starting to think Red Hat sucks? (Score:1)
Unfortunately most other distributions I've tried (yes, that includes debian) are guilty of the same sins, to varying degrees.
Linux has been dumbed down *way* too much lately. Yes, it works (mostly) fine out of the box if you just want a desktop box and never want to install any additional software or integrate it into a slightly complex network. If you want to do any real work (rather than looking at the pretty buttons in gnome/kde/whatever) you end up removing half the installed system and rebuilding from source
Anyone care to suggest a low-LL linux distribution? I would switch to *BSD if that didn't mean that half my hardware would stop working
Hold on a second... (Score:1)
I've gotta have it!!! (Score:1)
i'd heard that linux was good but damn!.
Re:Why am I starting to think Red Hat sucks? (Score:1)
Re:Kind of like... (Score:2)
I'm lucky to get 48 hours, much less 48 days!
Re:relatively minor (Score:1)
Re:Ok, whats the deal. (Score:1)
Contrariwise, I would prefer the system to bog down and require user intervention in that case, rather than just ransomly reset. At least then the user could see the need for the reset, save important files, sync disks, etc. This is in the case of a personal workstation or a server. If it really becomes a pain the user can easily script something to reset the machine at predicable intervals.
In some cases in the telecom industry it's better to reset quickly and come back up, but I'm not sure that RH7 is being used for those sorts of things...
FUD FUD FUD (Score:1)
Now according to your FUD every NT box must be rebooted every 49 days? I don't think so. We have windows boxes at work that get many months of uptime.
Re:Kind of like... (Score:1)
- \\NTMACHINE has been up for: 36 day(s), 23 hour(s), 53 minute(s), 37 second(s)
Of course, this beats our production server's 6 day(s), 1 hour(s), 47 minute(s), 47 second(s)Re:Why is that? (Score:1)
Windoze is horrible at letting go of resources once it has used them.
Priceless (Score:2)
CD/RW burner - $229.50
10 pack of CDs - $49.95
Look on luser's face when the server drops - Priceless
Re:Not a service pack? (Score:1)
I can't really think of much that sucks more than installing and admining Windows NT on 50+ servers.
Specially when you have to install ~10 things that each require a reboot and the server takes a few mins to reboot because of how much ram it has.
Never again I tell ya.
Oh and installing updates off their website? woohoo another reboot (for each server!) bah! I guess it's good job security for anybody who likes being an admin though.
And you say they release hot fixes -all- the time? ugh!!
And don't get me started on having to format and start over because you messed up installing a product, or you installed the products out of order.. Jesus!!
hahaha....
-----------------------
Jeremy 'PeelBoy' Amberg
Re:Biased pinhead... (Score:1)
This is a feature for the DESKTOP, to compete with MS's same named feature, and will be most used by people who think a three week uptime is spectacular regardless.
Besides that, the lesson to be learned again is that X.0 software (esp. OSes) is buggy.
--
Going off topic, but... Re:Childish (Score:1)
The first debate was the typical podium one. The one tonight (Wed, Oct 11) will be a round-table, similar to the VP debate, where Gore and Bush sit at a table with Lehrer, and will be given a bit more time to 'talk' to each other like the VP's did. The final debate next week will be town-hall system, which IIRC has a bit more audience participation in it.
Each type of debate has strenghts and weakens that each candidate was better at, so they choose the multiple styles when they dealed on the debate issue back in August. They also got the one that is most scripted out of the way, so that the latter ones will probably require more off the cuff answers and questions.
Attentive RH users ... (Score:2)
... have probably already figured this out. I kept seeing bizzaro stuff in my log files from rhnsd. After looking up /etc/init.d/rhnsd I saw that it was not something I needed (I always download for free, so I doubt they are going to be giving me any service ).
At least it was putting nice messages into the log file.
For those who need it:
chkconfig --level 345 rhnsd off (turns off the startup)
Re:one word: cron (Score:1)
Not to quibble, but isn't crond a "long-running daemon"? Granted most of these sorts of problems have been thrashed out of cron a long time ago.
Re:Childish (Score:1)
And very little money.
___
Open Sores? (Score:1)
We will ship no distro before it's tested - oh, wait, gotta crank it out before the quarterlies on the street are updated.
Never mind
Re:Red Hat==Microsoft - I'm a believer! (Score:2)
Bleeding edge isn't what Debian stable is about but that is definitely what Debian unstable is for.
You asked for reccommendations... There's mine
Kind of like... (Score:5)
They never introduced a fix... the sheer idea of running win95 for 43 days was silly, even to MS.
X 4.0.1 and older distros. (Score:2)
You'll have to update a few other packages to get it to install cleanly (initscripts, among others), but it can be done.
BTW, you have to be willing to recompile from SRPMs - precompiled RPMs won't work. But here's how you do it:
Recompile the X RPMs.
Try to install them, find out what needs to be updated.
Get those packages, rebuild them from their SRPMs and install.
After that, the hardest thing is updating your XF86Config file...
Re:And is this affected win2k... (Score:2)
Has been like that since Slashdot started. However, what you are saying about hotmail switching to Win2K has been covered here [slashdot.org]. Again, it may be biased (take the title of that article, for example
So please check first before making statements about
Re:Kind of like... (Score:2)
Why is that? (Score:2)
Why was that? I personally like to leave my computer on it's better for the electrical connections within the machine and parts due to thermal expansion/contraction.
Linux is targetting Windows (Score:4)
Re:Proof positive of the benefits of Open Source (Score:2)
Of course, almost all NT stability depends on your device drivers, and not knowing that is the #1 cause of unstable NT installs done by non-pros.
Re:But it doesn't DO anything (Score:2)
Re:Ok, whats the deal. (Score:2)
Whoops, sorry, outside observers. Rob, please change the headline to read "Another RedHat Feature Discovered".
If I were running on OS that came with a incompatible (and buggy to boot) compiler, a 3 week uptime limit and countless other "issues" I would call it junk. If RedHat is distributing a version of Linux with these problem, then RedHat Linux is junk. Forget what it looks like to "outside observers"--that's just propaganda. Many of us chose Linux because of it's reputation for technical excellence--if RedHat can't stand the heat, they need to leave the kitchen.
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Re:Kind of like... (Score:3)
That was supposed to be funny, laugh dammit.
--
Re:one word: cron (Score:2)
Presumably cron has addressed all the issues involved in running forever. That is why The Pim recommends it. He wasn't implying that cron wasn't a long running-daemon. Solving these issues again is re-inventing the wheel, and, in this case, re-inventing the square wheel.
Um, No (Score:2)
The easyest fix is to just run up2date, and update the 'up2date' package, which owns the daemon.
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
/. ate my comment! (Score:5)
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.
Re:Ok, whats the deal. (Score:2)
--
Mike Mangino
Sr. Software Engineer, SubmitOrder.com
Re:Politics (Score:5)
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.
Their "quick fix" also has a bug :) (Score:3)
But of course it should be
This doesn't exactly help improving the impression of their
Re:Politics (Score:5)
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.
Re:And I paid money for this crap! (Score:2)
>useless.
By that definition of useless, EVERY data CD is useless. There is no such thing as a bug-free release of any piece of software.
>Oh I guess I could install RH 7.0 and then
>download a million patches.
Oh you poor thing. You have to type 'up2date' at the console.
>Service packs are a great idea because you can
>consolidate all of the fixes into a comprehensive
>unit and thus you can tell people, my software
>will work on Redhat 7.0 service pack 3
I have to agree with you on this one. The concept of a service pack or a patch bundle is usefull at times.
However, patches SHOULD be made available as soon as there is one, and should continue to be available individually.
I don't know how many times during my stint as a support person I ran into a service pack or patch bundle that broke other things that were working fine.
Matt
Politics (Score:2)
Common politics would dictate waiting for the bug story to cool down before stroking the still-burning embers.
Service packs on Win9x (Score:2)
I'm running Slack on my desktop...
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs [8m.com]!
Re:Proof positive of the benefits of Open Source (Score:2)
Therefore a normal application cannot use up all file descriptors. Probably however the update agent runs with super-user privileges ( I don't know for sure: does it also automatically update packages?)
I see this bug as a result of a worrying tendence of open-source software to copy M$oft software in giving too much control to the computer and too few control to the user (outlook viruses, anyone?)
In these matters my motto is : the dumbest of users is still more intelligent than the smartest of computers.
Strange.. (Score:2)
Slack doesn't seem to have this problem
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
???? (Score:2)
Re:But that doesn't work well (Score:2)
No. Because Debian unstable/frozen gets tested by such a lot of people that a Debian-Crashes-In-Three-Weeks problem would get fixed way before the actual release.
Not saying Debian is perfect, just that that particular problem would be virtually impossible.
Serious teething pains (Score:2)
However, I've abstained from buying RH 7, due to the massive problems they seem to have with this release. Far more than I remember in the 5.0 release and 6.0 release.
I'm using Debian at work, and becoming more and more enamoured of it's stability and ease of upgrade.
I was under the impression that the RawHide system of pre-release was meant to cure this kind of screwup.. This also dents my faith in that preconception.
The errors in the update agent are unforgivable though. With any release that's as shaky as a x.0 release from RH, they at least need update stable.
C'mon RH. Get your act together before you really lose your credibility.
Malk.
Re:Serious teething pains (Score:5)
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.
Childish (Score:4)
You can't do that standing on such shaky ground. One could argue that it _is_ a service pack, or point out that MS does usually release patches to serious problems within a week as well as rolling them up into a service pack.
Bugs.. (Score:2)
As for a memory leak, it's one of the most common errors you can have. 3 weeks is still a pretty good time frame; the fix was out very quickly; it was made public, the how and why of it. These are things you won't see with closed source companies. Bash RedHat all you want, truth is their internal programs just simply don't get the exposure the rest of Linux per se does, so some bugs slip by.
-- Talonius
Only if you subscribe? (Score:2)
---
Re:sorry you got it wrong (Score:2)
Ok, whats the deal. (Score:2)
Memory leaks, perhaps? (Score:2)
relatively minor (Score:2)
Re:this is what happens... (Score:2)
Re:Kind of like... (Score:4)
And it was 49.7 days (the time it takes for a millisecond timer to overflow a 32bit unsigned integer.
It was fixed in one of the service packs.
See this MS KB entry for details [microsoft.com].
Re:Red Hat==Microsoft - I'm a believer! (Score:2)
I'm not complaining that there are bugs in RH7 - I know it's new, and I'm the first person to tell clients not to put new software on production servers. I made a considered choice to do this on my own server, because the hardware needed upgrading anyway, and the RH 5.2 which has been running flawlessly on it for the past couple of years was missing some stuff that I needed.
My problem is with the nature of this RH issue: it's a bug in a piece of software RH developed internally, and install by default without any indication or choice. I find that kind of "thinking for the customer" undesirable and unacceptable, and as I said, Microsoft-like. No doubt it's a reflection of Red Hat's post-IPO mass consumer focus; unfortunately that doesn't suit me very well.
As for checking the services, I did the install over the weekend, looked at the long list of services (since I installed a bunch of database and other server stuff) and decided to check it out later. I would have found rhnsd soon enough. Security isn't much of an issue because the box sits behind a firewall at the colo site with only web, imap and ssh ports open; the web server is my own build of Apache 2.0 alpha, for development purposes only.
Linux file handle limit (Score:2)
Does Linux have a max # of file handles, after which new handles cannot be created?
Let me pose this another way -- Can I crash a Linux box by opening a whole lot of files? Or is this daemon run as root? Then the new question is why is a daemon that has the capability to automatically update critical software, running as root? Surely it could be spoofed to update a system with poor DLLs?
To a Linux newby, this whole article sounds very scary.
Re:But that doesn't work well (Score:2)
That is because apt-get's functionality has been thoroughly tested for quite some time.
It is actually kinda nice to see other distributions catching up.
Of course, auto-update will be pretty broken with the care that goes into packaging RH RPMS. Have you ever tried to upgrade a RH distribution manually ? It is a broken mess of irrelevant and missed dependencies. Debian does this seamlessly.
What RH really needs is a thorough packaging policy, like this [debian.org] and this [debian.org]. Only with a thorough packaging policy can upgrades and auto-upgrades be useful.
Mainly, I hate using rpm --nodeps --force. On my debian system I never need those --nodeps options. Wonder why ???
Re:Why is that? (Score:4)
They never introduced a fix... the sheer idea of running win95 for 43 days was silly, even to MS.
Why was that? I personally like to leave my computer on it's better for the electrical connections within the machine and parts due to thermal expansion/contraction.
Better for the "electrical connections within the machine"... Uhhh, okay.
Actually, it's just an expansion-contraction issue within the ICs, in particular. And the hard disk drive, landing the heads every time you shut down (but this is the same as if you leave the power management on). Cheap power supplies can sometimes make issues with voltage spikes as they turn on; if you buy a good one, the voltages all come up to their regulated levels and then the Power_Good line is pulled high and the motherboard is reset.
So, if you have a good quality system, you probably won't have any problems with the wear of turning your machine on and off in reasonable useage until after the machine is obsolete.
Compare this to the higher power bills, risks of fans dying and overheating that conservatively overclocked processor, as well as more potential uptime for a thunderstorm to kill it, and I feel it's probably wise to shut off the computer when you're not using it. Of course, that's discretion. Do you turn off the computer when you leave the office for lunch? Nah. For the weekend? For sure. Overnight? I do.
I do speak with some authority here; while I'm not an electrical engineer, I have several years of experience design engineering critical radar systems for Litton [litton.com]. I also used to write electronics design and construction columns for Popular Electronics magazine.
As for Windows 9x/ME, it's only under controlled laboratory conditions that you can make a Windows box run long enough to see that bug. I've managed to see the 49.7 day bug once; and with the M$ fix, I've seen a record uptime of 103 days with Windows 95B OSR2. Windows 3.1/DOS, I've managed to keep running for months at a time.
ouch, this has to hurt.... (Score:3)
In an ideal situation, every programmer will look at the source code, and contribute to the effort of the open project. Most people (like myself) are free-riders, who have no ability to program. So as idealistically sound open source may seem, there are certain issues to worry about.
In RH's case, at least they pay their workers-which means that they are more willing to do the dirtywork of bug fixing others' code (in theory). Although, cases like this gives another doubt in the "Linux for the business" credibility since more non-techies seem to equate Linux with RedHat. It seems to be an understanding by almost everyone, that any RH x.0 distro is pretty much an experimental state, and must not be used on production servers. This, however, makes theo perating system appear "buggy" and "not production-quality" to the uninformed, hence I wish they will take more pride in their distribution instead of "hey, we had that packaged into ours first!" I honestly wish comments on how RH's similarity with MS due to their tactics are only on the surface. Unlike MS (whose operating system is proprietary), RH simply has their own distribution of an open-sourced OS. If you so choose not to use their distro, you have enough other choices: e.g. Debian, Mandrake, Slackware, etc etc.
For the last time, Darwin is not BSD! (Score:2)
Mac OS X's kernel (Darwin) is not your typical monolithic BSD [freebsd.org] kernel. It's a Mach kernel [cmu.edu] with a layer of BSD-like services around that. Darwin is Nearly-Free Software under the Apple Public Source License.
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs [8m.com]!
I'm using xawtv on Red Hat 7 (Score:2)
Watching the 2nd US Presidential debate start now, in fact.
Email me for a copy of my conf.modules (which may not be helpful if you're using a non bttv card) or XF86Config files.
Is this a ploy... (Score:2)
Just a thought.
Inexcusable (Score:2)
Hello World (Score:2)
int main() {
printf("Hello, World!\n");
}
You are right, it is possible to write a small program without any bugs and - wait, sorry, I forgot to make it return an exit code. Let me get back to you...
Biased pinhead... (Score:2)
Personally, I frequently use Red Hat & W2K to do my job, and am quite pleased with both. As I've been watching, I've seen you go hog wild over the Windows 47 day bug, but yet when RH has a 3 week one, it must not be a big deal... Hello, THIS IS A SERVER-CLASS OS. IT IS A BIG DEAL.
Re:Serious teething pains (Score:2)
Re:Biased pinhead... (Score:3)
RHL 7 has been out for two weeks. It's not even in _stores_ around here yet, but the bug has been found. It's been fixed.
That's why it's not a big deal.
Main page comings and goings (Score:3)
Disappearing article? (Score:4)
Wait, a revolutionary moment!!! Slashdot confirms an article before posting it!!!
A little perspective (Score:5)
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...
Re:But that doesn't work well (Score:2)
Huh. I never need them on my Red Hat system either. Wonder why???
Tell you what. Install redhat 4.2. Then upgrade one rpm command at a time to redhat 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, 6.2, and then 7.0. And see how many times you need to use the --nodeps option.
The incidence is dramatically lower for debian debs. It is not the deb format. Rpm has all the same capabilities. It is the care that goes into packaging, highlighted by the packaging guides. Try to find something more comprehensive at the web site of a linux distribution.
There ought to be limits to freedom. - GWB
Completely unusuable in 3 weeks? (Score:3)
Re:Memory leaks, perhaps? (Score:2)
Have you ever run out of file descriptors? (Score:3)
It's not a pretty sight. It's not too far off from running out of memory. And, the 4096 number is a system wide number:
Now, it's not that when that number runs out, that process dies, but the *NEXT* process to request a file dies. This happens on officially penguin-peed kernels as well. You need to set resource limits to keep an individual process from getting to trigger happy with files.
And by the way, take stock 2.2 and make a program which either A) fork bombs or B) chews memory. Watch the system go down in flames. In the case of (B) you (once? Is it fixed?) had the chance of watching the kernel give init the boot, which is very ugly.
--
Ben Kosse
wrong. (Score:2)
Computer Hangs After 49.7 Days
-----------------------------------------------
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 95 OEM Service Release versions 2, 2.1, 2.5
Microsoft Windows 98
one word: cron (Score:5)
Re: (Score:2)
incompatible compiler? (Score:2)
It generates perfectly ISO compatible code. It's not RedHat's fault the ISO spec is vague and underdefined. Expecting different versions of a C++ compiler (or different C++ compilers for that matter) to emit compatible code is a blatant misfeature.
Just Curious... (Score:2)
Why anyone would want their system to "auto-update" is beyond me. I think you're just asking for trouble if you do that.
Did M$ buy some stock in RedHat? Seems like all these bugs and errata stem from a basic case of the dumbass, joined together with some deadlines from the marketing droids... geezz!
You lack slack, Jack! (Score:3)
Re:Politics (Score:2)
If you don't want to go to the errata page for update news, let the update news come to you...
mail -s subscribe redhat-watch-list-request@redhat.com < /dev/null
Re:Proof positive of the benefits of Open Source (Score:3)
---
No, but ... (Score:2)
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Re:Proof positive of the benefits of Open Source (Score:2)
49.7 day bug discovered: 1999
Fix released: never
Well, it was Win 95 and 98, not NT. And it was fixed. click [microsoft.com]
And is this affected win2k... (Score:2)
Re:Politics (Score:3)
And I'm very glad to know about the bug and the fix; it's something of a showstopper, and I didn't know the update manager was active by default, so this is valuable information -- not RedHat bashing.
-Erf C.
Re:Ok, whats the deal. (Score:2)
Re:Proof positive of the benefits of Open Source (Score:4)
Re:sorry you got it wrong (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Got Them Dot Zero Blues (Score:5)
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
Re:Scary (Score:2)
Obviously, when he said "We did a lot of QA," he was talking about the snapshot of GCC, and not the OS as a whole.
Sure, they should have caught this bug, or better, it should have been considered at design time, but (and I'm not trying to make excuses for Red Hat here), to catch this bug, they prolly would've had to have had a 7.0 system up and running for 3 weeks straight. Maybe their test cycle is shorter than that. If their test cycle was say.. 6 weeks, then who knows what kind of bugs might pop up at the 6 1/2 week mark? You can only allow so much testing for a product before releasing it, or you'd never release anything.
As I said, yes, they should have caught this, but as we all know, no software works perfectly, and sh*t happens. At least there's a fix for it.
Re:Proof positive of the benefits of Open Source (Score:2)
Right, but this application doesn't "go haywire," per se, as in "crash and burn" and scribble all over other peoples' core--it uses up a resource gradually--there is a difference.
This isn't much different from an application that runs away and fills up the disk or allocates all available memory. Should Linux allow an application to deplete a resource without giving the admin a chance to kill the offender first? Probably not, and maybe this is one of those issues that will have to be addressed in the 2.5.0 tree. At any rate, Linux is still far more stable and dependable than that other OS.
Re:Why is that? (Score:2)
I'd bet that's because a Windows3.1/DOS machine is the virtual equivalent of a 'rock'.
Normal modern systems have weird daemons in the background which eventually contribute to their demise.
If that was the sense in which you're calling Windows 3.1 a rock, I fully agree.
As long as an application doesn't crash it out, I've never found DOS or Window 3.x to ever be unstable. Primitive, yes. Full of frustrating quirks, absolutely (this *is* an M$ product, after all). But not spontaneous crashers.
Something tells me that it's a REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA to allow your current system configuration to go out over the network towards a centralized server every 30 minutes.
Hey, look! This guy's running an old version of BIND, it's black hat time, et al.
<grin> Does the daemon that does this report *itself* to the server this same way? If it does that, at least the new RH Insecurity Daemon also gives itself a chance to be the door to an intruder...
I know a lot of people who use their personal computers as servers in one way or another, and turning the thing on and off just isn't workable because you have to _plan_ your uptime to when you think you might need to get something remotely. This never ever works.Absolutely. In fact, several of my computers run 24/7. But only those that need to; the rest of them are turned on when I get home, and turned off when I go to bed. By the same token, several of my computers at the office are up all the time, and several more go down when I leave for the night.
After all, the computers are there to be used, not to be protected from any bad thing that can possibly happen to them.
This isn't really an issue for Microsoft operating systems at this point, because remote access to most of them is quite horrid.I disagree. It was really thoughtful of M$ to automatically bind NetBIOS file and print sharing to your internet-connected network adapters by default. Evidently, someone was planning ahead for remote accessibility.
I've kept various computers on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since I was 14 and ran a Bulletin Board System, and personally I've never had problems besides broken burnt-smelling fans every couple years.<grin> In my experience, it's usually not the fan that smells burnt when it fails... a brushless DC fan doesn't heat up when it gets stalled by dust or a plastic "ball bearing" melts and seizes the rotor. What heats up and starts to smell is the component(s) that the fan was supposed to be cooling.
The added functionality I get from it is _way_ more than the sacrifice, and since those who run Linux are (for the most part) serious computer users, its not realistic for us to do otherwise.My Linux servers run 24/7/364.25. But my Windows boxes don't; neither do my general-purpose Linux machines. Discretion.
Re:Red Hat==Microsoft - I'm a believer! (Score:2)
My problem is with the nature of this RH issue: it's a bug in a piece of software RH developed internally, and install by default without any indication or choice. I find that kind of "thinking for the customer" undesirable and unacceptable, and as I said, Microsoft-like. No doubt it's a reflection of Red Hat's post-IPO mass consumer focus; unfortunately that doesn't suit me very well.
As for RTFM, where exactly is this documented? The paper manual has shrunk significantly since RH 5.2, and I have yet to find the documentation, paper or otherwise, about the fact that this update daemon gets installed by default.
Bottom line: I'm a developer, and I don't need someone else deciding on my behalf to install daemons on my system that I don't care about. That in itself is 50% of my issue with this. The fact that this daemon had a fatal bug is the other 50%. Red Hat screwed this up both ways.
Re:X 4.0.1 and older distros. (Score:2)
Re:Disappearing article? (Score:5)