Re: proposal: add external_acl flags: max_requests min_alive

ons 2006-04-26 klockan 07:40 -0300 skrev Gonzalo Arana:

> o max_requests: after this number or requests, the helper will be
> shutdown and replaced by a new one. This is to help leaky helpers.

Makes sense. Today the helpers are restarted at log rotation (needed as
their stderr is connected to cache.log, and also good garbage collection
of buggy/leaking helpers..)

> o min_alive: to avoid short-lived helpers, they should stay alive at
> least for this amount of seconds. This should help against
> fork-query-kill per request behaviour if request rate is drastically
> increased.

Not sure about this one. If you have problems with a helper leaking a
lot of memory requiring it to be frequently restarted then the helper
should be fixed. Having safeguards in Squid to prevent Squid from
restarting the helper frequently if the same configuration says it needs
to be restarted after only a few requests is confusing I think.

There very rarely is time related issues with the helpers. Nearly always
the only relation to garbage/leaks in the helper is the number of
requests processed. So even if the helper functions so poorly that it
needs to be restarted after only a few requests you'd probably still
want to do this even if the request rate is suddenly higher than you
planned for.

And obviously the best action is to get the helper fixed...

Regards
Henrik