RE: IP Acounting Idea for 2.5

[Jesse Pollard <pollard@tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil>]

Leif Sawyer <lsawyer@gci.com>:
> > And that introduces errors in measurement. It also depends on 
> > how frequently an uncontroled process is clearing the counters.
> > You may never be able to get a valid measurement.
> 
> This is true.  Which is why application programmers need to write
> code as if they are not the only [ab]users of data.
> 
> Which brings me back to my point.
> 
> Don't force the kernel to uphold your local application requirements
> of stable counters.
> 
> Enforce it in the userspace portion of the code.
> 
> <subtopic>
> Yes, you could extend the proc filesystem (ugh) with a flag that could
> be read by the ip[chains|tables] user app to determine if clearing flags
> were allowed.  Then a simple
> 
> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/counters_locked
> 
> or some such cruft.  But I don't see this extension making into the
> standard kernel at this time.  It just seems to be wasteful.
> </subtopic>
> 
> If you (at your site) really need this type of functionality, it's
> pretty darn simple to write a wrapper to ip[tables|chains] which
> silently (or not so) drops the option to clear the counters before
> calling the real version.
> 
> Besides, what would be gained in making the counters RO, if they were
> cleared every time the module was loaded/unloaded?

1. Knowlege that the module was reloaded.
2. Knowlege that the data being measured is correct
3. Having reliable measures
4. being able to derive valid statistics
....

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Jesse I Pollard, II
Email: pollard@navo.hpc.mil

Any opinions expressed are solely my own.