Subject: Re: reminder, 2.6.18 window...

From: Phil Dibowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 11:56:45 -0700

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 02:23:05PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> I disagree that we should bother about clearing statistics.  It always 
> adds more complication than necessary.  Few (if any) other statistics in 
> Linux permit easy clearing, often because adding operations other than 
> 'increment' or 'read' requires adding expensive spinlocks or atomic 
> operations.

Every networking device in the world supports clearing interface statistics.
Why should linux not be able to do the most basic operation on any
cisco/juniper/enterasys/whatever managed switch or router?

It's a common operation on a network interface, I don't see why this is a
concern.

When I'm debugging a networking issue On a cluster of hundreds and hundreds
of machines at work, I want to be able to reset them all quickly, and get a
rough idea of if they're all climbing, if they're all climbing at the same
rate, etc. And being able to do "for i in `cat hostlist`; do ssh $i ethtool -z
eth0; done" is really, really, REALLY, useful.

As for SNMP statistics, again, this is just like clearing stats on any other
platform - it's a manual thing... you're *choosing* to reset the stats, and
accept the consequences. Its not like the patch introduces some nightly
resetting - it's just an _option_ to users

It's about providing an option that requires no extra complications in the
code (at least in this case), and that has been requested on every
sysadmin-related list I'm on, and in most cases is a re-occuring topic.

-- 
Phil Dibowitz                             [email-masked]
Freeware and Technical Pages              Insanity Palace of Metallica
http://www.phildev.net/                   http://www.ipom.com/

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