# fd patch - Thread: https://externals.io/message/1752 - Original archive: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/1752 - Started by Zeev Suraski on 2003-05-20T01:52:30+00:00 - Messages: 5 - Reply by email to internals@lists.php.net - More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt --- ## #1752 — Zeev Suraski — 2003-05-20T01:52:30+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/1752#1752 Just a last heads up before the release here. Do we really want this patch in? I think that it was put in a bug-fix release in a rather hasty manner, with no real reason. We've already experienced one crash, there may be others - it's a very central piece of code. Weighing the pros and cons of this patch, it basically fixes a problem that isn't new or even unique to PHP, and existed ever since the days of PHP/FI 2. The symptoms of this problem arise fairly rarely, in situations where there's a combination of a web server that opens a very large number of files[*], and an operating system with a libc that can't handle fd's over 255 (Solaris). I think that saying that PHP is unusable under Solaris is a gross overstatement; I've been aware of this issue since 1996, and yet, I've come across less than a handful of real world cases that experienced this problem, versus hundreds of cases that worked flawlessly. By including the patch, we are fixing a problem that affects a very small percentage of the userbase on Solaris[*], at the price of a fairly big risk in breaking functionality for existing users on ALL operating systems. To summarize, including it in 4.3.2 (or anything in the 4.3.x series) doesn't sound like good math to me. v5/ZE2 already has a fix for this, and considering the urgency level of this issue, the sensitivity of the code it touches, and the amount of testing that 4.3.x will get before it gets released versus 5.x - waiting for 5 makes much more sense. For people who experience this specific issue, we can provide the patch for 4.3.x on php.net. I don't mean to start a big thread here - I feel very uncomfortable releasing such a sensitive patch with so little testing, and don't exactly understand why the problem that it addresses is suddenly so urgent. If there's consensus here that this patch is important for this 4.3.x release, so be it - I want to at least voice my opinion before it gets finalized. Zeev [*] Namely, users of multithreaded servers that actually use PHP in threaded mode, which are relatively few; And users of Apache, configured with hundreds of log files, which are also relatively few. There might be other examples, but the problem certainly does not affect a typical Apache/PHP setup. Specifically, it is NOT correlated in any way to the number of include/require files that you have in your application - as long as there's one fd under 255 handy, PHP will operate without any problems. --- ## #1755 — Sascha Schumann — 2003-05-20T02:32:09+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/1752#1755 · In reply to: #1752 > Just a last heads up before the release here. Do we really want this patch > in? I think that it was put in a bug-fix release in a rather hasty manner, > with no real reason. We've already experienced one crash, there may be > others - it's a very central piece of code. Yes, it is indeed very central and that is the reason why the old code caused so much trouble for a long, long time. It fixes a nasty limitation on an important platform. Certain SAPI modules like NSAPI, AOLserver, Apache 2 and thttpd are severely affected by this issue - they are basically useless on Solaris. The patch has been extensively tested -- I have so much faith in it, that is already running at a customer's site on several Solaris installations. If you want more exposure for the patch, I suggest rolling another RC and using our far reaching announce mailing list for generating feedback regarding the RC's quality for once. - Sascha --- ## #1756 — Zeev Suraski — 2003-05-20T02:48:38+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/1752#1756 · In reply to: #1752 At 05:32 20/05/2003, Sascha Schumann wrote: > > > > […] > > Yes, it is indeed very central and that is the reason why the > old code caused so much trouble for a long, long time. It definitely wasn't too much trouble, there was next to no complaints about it. > It > fixes a nasty limitation on an important platform. Certain > SAPI modules like NSAPI, AOLserver, Apache 2 and thttpd are > severely affected by this issue - they are basically useless > on Solaris. Most of these SAPIs have been basically useless on all operating systems until recently. Most of them are still not considered stable for production use because of other threading issues. Despite this long list of SAPIs, Apache 1.x SAPI users far outnumber the users of these SAPIs. I had no doubt that you'd defend the introduction of this patch, you wouldn't have introduced it otherwise. I'm more interested in hearing what other people think, as I think they weren't made aware of the scope of the problem and the risks involved. Zeev --- ## #1757 — Sascha Schumann — 2003-05-20T03:08:35+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/1752#1757 · In reply to: #1756 Zeev, you are a bit late -- I'm afraid it would be riskier to remove the fd patch and all related changes at this point than just carrying on. I understand that you fear "late breakage", because you have been involved in such events a couple of times in the past. It's just natural to learn from such mistakes and try to prevent them in the future. In order to address that, I propose making a release candidate announcement to a wider audience. The GCC folks regularly use their announce mailing list for pre-releases. If we do the same, it would help us tremendously to put the spot on our release candidates and receive more diverse feedback. Any opinions? - Sascha --- ## #1763 — Derick Rethans — 2003-05-20T06:38:16+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/1752#1763 · In reply to: #1752 > I don't mean to start a big thread here - I feel very uncomfortable > releasing such a sensitive patch with so little testing, and don't exactly > understand why the problem that it addresses is suddenly so urgent. If > there's consensus here that this patch is important for this 4.3.x release, > so be it - I want to at least voice my opinion before it gets finalized. I have the same feelings, I was not really happy by putting it in in the PHP_4_3 either. (Though I'm not sure if I voiced that opinion on a list). I think it's up to our release guy (Jani) to decide what to do with it. Derick -- "my other box is your windows PC" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Derick Rethans http://derickrethans.nl/ International PHP Magazine http://php-mag.net/