Re: reread config

On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Bryan Stansell wrote:

> I don't know if anyone else has tried, but I've definately thought about it for 
> quite a while.  As you've seen, it's not easy.  What's really a bummer is that 
> there's a statically allocated array that holds all the really interesting 
> stuff.  So, each child will have to re-read the configuration file or there 
> needs to be some way for them to receive "updates" of sorts or told to not 
> manage certain consoles or whatever.  See, the real question is, if someone 
> adds a console to a .cf file somewhere in the middle, everything gets shifted.  
> The processes, if spawned newly, would each manage a new console and lose one 
> as well (each get a set in the order of the .cf file).  Those connected to 
> consoles have TCP connections with particular child processes.  Do you drop all 
> connections and have things re-read and have the children know what group 
> they're supposed to manage or do you feed a message to the children 
> saying "don't manage this any more" and "manage this now" or do you spawn a new 
> child for the newly added consoles and let the new child control all the new 
> consoles.  It's kind of a horrid problem.
> 
hmm. yeah. that's sort of what I feared.

> If you really want to attempt it (and I think it would be wonderful), I'd love 
> to know what ideas you have (and maybe the list in general) so that we can all 
> punch holes in any ideas...it's something that I think requires a whole lot of 
> thought, because of the underlying architecture.  One thought is that 
> underlying architecture needs to just change, so that this is easier.  I wish I 
> had some basic ideas on how to improve things, but I haven't had a chance to 
> think about anything but the pitfalls...hence my paragraph above.  Anyway, good 
> luck, and please keep at least me informed...it's a challenge I'd love to see 
> conquered (and helping with the idea/planning phase is something I'd love to 
> do).
> 

well, I don't really have time to do a significant amont of work on it
right now, and it seems like that is what would be required. However, I
will noodle on it for a while. Back burner on slow simmer.
conserver consomme.

The thing I really don't want is something that will drop all existing
connections. We've got all the consoles hanging off cisco async
boards requiring securid authentication, so dropping and restarting
all those connections would require a significant amount of manual
intervention. So, it's an interesting problem. I haven't really looked
at it in great depth. I was wondering if there might be a way to lookup
entries as the cf is parsed, and only delete ones that weren't found
and deallocate or add new ones that were found.

	Doug