From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Hack the (init) system!
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2015 14:08:02 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87a8t2wfod.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <874mjb0wvm.fsf@netris.org> (Mark H. Weaver's message of "Thu, 03 Sep 2015 21:57:33 -0400")
Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:
> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
[...]
>> I’m tempted to just commit that. There are shortcomings: (1) the REPL
>> server runs in a thread and threads + fork don’t go together well
>> (although in practice dmd only does fork followed by exec, so it’s OK),
>
> Unfortunately, it's only okay if the code between fork and exec in the
> child process is carefully written to execute only "async-signal-safe"
> operations.
Right (I was not suggesting that the hack is robus, rather that it’s
kinda OK “in practice”, notably because I would only start it once all
the ‘fork’ calls have been made.)
> So, I think we have two choices:
>
> 1. Avoid threads in dmd, i.e. either refrain from adding this REPL
> server feature, or re-implement it in a way that avoids threads.
>
> 2. Avoid 'primitive-fork' in dmd, which means reimplementing
> 'fork+exec-command' in C; reimplementing the code where we currently
> use 'primitive-fork' within various guix service definitions; and
> documenting that users should never use 'primitive-fork' in their
> services. If we choose this route, we should probably disable
> 'primitive-fork' somehow, or at least have it issue a stern warning.
>
> I don't think that we should add a set of features to dmd that will make
> it fundamentally unreliable in a way that cannot be fixed.
>
> What do you think?
Agreed, of course. I think #1 is the way to go.
Thanks,
Ludo’.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-09-04 12:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-09-03 21:02 Hack the (init) system! Ludovic Courtès
2015-09-04 0:25 ` Thompson, David
2015-09-04 12:05 ` Ludovic Courtès
2015-09-04 13:05 ` Thompson, David
2015-09-04 0:54 ` Thompson, David
2015-09-04 1:57 ` Mark H Weaver
2015-09-04 12:08 ` Ludovic Courtès [this message]
2015-09-25 23:04 ` Christopher Allan Webber
2015-09-26 13:02 ` Ludovic Courtès
2015-09-26 17:30 ` Christopher Allan Webber
2015-09-28 9:13 ` Andy Wingo
2015-09-28 13:42 ` Taylan Ulrich Bayırlı/Kammer
2015-09-28 13:43 ` Thompson, David
2015-09-28 15:01 ` Christopher Allan Webber
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://guix.gnu.org/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=87a8t2wfod.fsf@gnu.org \
--to=ludo@gnu.org \
--cc=guix-devel@gnu.org \
--cc=mhw@netris.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).