[long] Recovery handling in TXN branch

[David Relson]

Hi Gyepi!

You've been quiet for a while :-)

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 11:55:29 -0400
Gyepi SAM wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 16, 2004 at 10:50:26AM -0400, David Relson wrote:
> > Once upon a time (up through version 0.8), bogofilter included ESR's
> > autodaemon code.  I've got copies if you want it.
> 
> I have been following this discussion sporadically, but with interest
> but could not devote the bandwidth to participate.
> 
> In any case, I would recommend against using the original autodaemon
> code. Aside from the fact that the patch would not apply cleanly given
> the multitude of changes, I remember the autodaemon code as being
> quite buggy and not well thought out.

I probably haven't looked at that code since Sep or Oct of 2002.  I
remember thinking it was a neat idea.  I didn't understand exactly what
the code was going and wasn't interested enough to spend the time to
understand it.

>  I hate to say it, especially since I introduced it to the project,
>  but Berkeley DB
> is a difficult and problematic system to work with. From personal
> experience and other projects I have used, it appears that trying to
> use any of its complex features leads to headaches. A common example:
> Look at often rpm hangs on newer redhat systems and must be killed
> off. Frequently, it turns out that an rpm instance locked the database
> and failed to unlock it for whatever reason so all subsequent attempts
> to use the database block until the database lock files are manually
> deleted.  What we need here is a small, fast embedded database with
> transactional capabilities. Ideally, we should support only a single
> database instead of the 3 or 4 that currently exists.
> 
> Perhaps it's time to investigate an alternative database system. I
> recommend SQLite (http://www.sqlite.com/). It has all the desired
> features with, AFAIK, none of the drawbacks of BDB.

None of the drawbacks sounds of great value.  Implementing another
database isn't high on my personal wish list -- too many unknowns --
better the devil I know ...

> Yours from left field!

Indeed!  Maybe it's a home run with bases loaded.  I'll have to read
more of the sqlite docs.

David