Re: A Critique of Shepherd Design

["Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>]

Hi,

raid5atemyhomework <raid5atemyhomework@protonmail.com> skribis:

> Now, let us combine this with the second feature (really a bug): GNU
> shepherd is a simple, single-threaded Scheme program.  That means that
> if the single thread enters an infinite loop (because of a Shepherd
> service description that entered an infinite loop), then Shepherd
> itself hangs.

You’re right that it’s an issue; in practice, it’s okay because we pay
attention to the code we run there, but obviously, mistakes could lead
to the situation you describe.

It’s a known problem and there are plans to address it, discussed on
this list a few times before.  The Shepherd “recently” switched to
‘signalfd’ for signal handling in the main loop, with an eye on making
the whole loop event-driven:

  https://issues.guix.gnu.org/41507

This will address this issue and unlock things like “socket activation”.

That said, let’s not lie to ourselves: the Shepherd’s design is
simplistic.  I think that’s okay though because there’s a way to address
the main issues while keeping it simple.

Thanks,
Ludo’.