How can even computer?
So, there's a flavor of the flapping infinite loop problem that
can happen without flapping being detected (by the existing
flapping detector, that is). That detector relies on a series of
accepted projections to converge to a single projection repeated
X times. However, it's possible to have a race with a simulated
repair "finishing" that causes a problem so that no more
projections are ever accepted. Oops.
See also: new comments in do_react_to_env().
{sigh} This is a correction to a think-o error in the
"WIP: bugfix for rare flapping infinite loop (better fix I hope)"
bugfix that I thought I had finished in the slf/chain-manager/cp-mode
branch.
Silly me, the test for myself as the author of the not_sane transition was
wrong: we don't do that kind of insanity, other nodes might, though. ^_^
%% So, I'd tried this kind of "if everyone is doing it, then we
%% 'agree' and we can do something different" strategy before,
%% and it didn't work then. Silly me. Distributed systems
%% lesson #823: do not forget the past. In a situation created
%% by PULSE, of all=[a,b,c,d,e], b & d & e were scheduled
%% completely unfairly. So a & c were the only authors ever to
%% suceessfully write a suggested projection to a public store.
%% Oops.
%%
%% So, we're going to keep track in #ch_mgr state for the number
%% of times that this insane judgement has happened.
I'll run a set of PULSE tests (Cmd_e of the 'regression' style)
to try to confirm a fix for this pernicious little thing.
Final (?) part of the fix: add myself to SeenFlappers in
react_to_env_A30().
Also, add more misc details to the 'react' breadcrumb trail. Also,
save get(react) results into dbg2 whenever we write a private projection,
very valuable for debugging.
Also: cleanup PULSE code, add regression commands as option and
controls with some new environment variables. These regression
sequences were responsbile for several fruitful debugging sessions,
so we keep them for posterity and for their ability (with new seeds
and PULSE) to find new interleavings.
The prior commit wasn't sufficient: the range of transitions is wider than
assumed by that commit. So, we take one of two options, with a TODO task
of researching the other option.
Fix for today: We are going to game the system. We know that
C100 is going to be checking authorship relative to P_current's
UPI's tail. Therefore, we're just going to set it here.
Why??? Because we have been using this projection safely for
the entire flapping period! ... The only other way I see is to
allow C100 to carve out an exception if the repair finished
PLUS author_server check fails PLUS if we came from here, but
that feels a bit fragile to me: if some code factoring happens
in projection_transition_is_saneprojection_transition_is_sane()
or elsewhere that causes the author_server check to be
something-other-than-the-final-thing-checked, then such a
refactoring would likely cause an even harder bug to find &
fix. Conditions tested: 5 FLUs plus alternating partitions of:
[
[{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [],
[{b,a},{d,e}],
[{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], [], [{a,b}], []
].
%% We have a small problem for state transition sanity checking in the
%% case where we are flapping *and* a repair has finished. One of the
%% sanity checks in simple_chain_state_transition_is_sane(() is that
%% the author of P2 in this case must be the tail of P1's UPI: i.e.,
%% it's the tail's responsibility to perform repair, therefore the tail
%% must damn well be the author of any transition that says a repair
%% finished successfully.
%%
%% The problem is that author_server of the inner projection does not
%% reflect the actual author! See the comment with the text
%% "The inner projection will have a fake author" in
%react_to_env_A30().
%%
%% So, there's a special return value that tells us to try to check for
%% the correct authorship here.
Ha, famous last words, amirite?
%% The chain sequence/order checks at the bottom of this function aren't
%% as easy-to-read as they ought to be. However, I'm moderately confident
%% that it isn't buggy. TODO: refactor them for clarity.
So, now machi_chain_manager1:projection_transition_is_sane() is using
newer, far less buggy code to make sanity decisions.
TODO: Add support for Retrospective mode. TODO is it really needed?
Examples of how the old code sucks and the new code sucks less.
138> eqc:quickcheck(eqc:testing_time(10, machi_chain_manager1_test:prop_compare_legacy_with_v2_chain_transition_check(whole))).
xxxxxxxxxxxx..x.xxxxxx..x.x....x..xx........................................................Failed! After 69 tests.
[a,b,c]
{c,[a,b,c],[c,b],b,[b,a],[b,a,c]}
Old_res ([335,192,166,160,153,139]): true
New_res: false (why line [1936])
Shrinking xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx(3 times)
[a,b,c]
%% {Author1,UPI1, Repair1,Author2,UPI2, Repair2} %%
{c, [a,b,c],[], a, [b,a],[]}
Old_res ([338,185,160,153,147]): true
New_res: false (why line [1936])
false
Old code is wrong: we've swapped order of a & b, which is bad.
139> eqc:quickcheck(eqc:testing_time(10, machi_chain_manager1_test:prop_compare_legacy_with_v2_chain_transition_check(whole))).
xxxxxxxxxx..x...xx..........xxx..x..............x......x............................................(x10)...(x1)........Failed! After 120 tests.
[b,c,a]
{c,[c,a],[c],a,[a,b],[b,a]}
Old_res ([335,192,185,160,153,123]): true
New_res: false (why line [1936])
Shrinking xx.xxxxxx.x.xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx(4 times)
[b,a,c]
%% {Author1,UPI1,Repair1,Author2,UPI2, Repair2} %%
{a, [c], [], c, [c,b],[]}
Old_res ([338,185,160,153,147]): true
New_res: false (why line [1936])
false
Old code is wrong: b wasn't repairing in the previous state.
150> eqc:quickcheck(eqc:testing_time(10, machi_chain_manager1_test:prop_compare_legacy_with_v2_chain_transition_check(whole))).
xxxxxxxxxxx....x...xxxxx..xx.....x.......xxx..x.......xxx...................x................x......(x10).....(x1)........xFailed! After 130 tests.
[c,a,b]
{b,[c],[b,a,c],c,[c,a,b],[b]}
Old_res ([335,214,185,160,153,147]): true
New_res: false (why line [1936])
Shrinking xxxx.x.xxx.xxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx(4 times)
[c,b,a]
%% {Author1,UPI1,Repair1,Author2,UPI2, Repair2} %%
{c, [c], [a,b], c, [c,b,a],[]}
Old_res ([335,328,185,160,153,111]): true
New_res: false (why line [1981,1679])
false
Old code is wrong: a & b were repairing but UPI2 has a & b in the wrong order.
=INFO REPORT==== 11-May-2015::19:50:09 ===
Chain tail a of [a] starting repair of [c]
=INFO REPORT==== 11-May-2015::19:50:12 ===
Chain tail a of [a]: repair finished in 2.438 seconds: todo_yo
* Set max length of a chain at -define(MAX_CHAIN_LENGTH, 64).
* Perturb tick sleep time of each manager
* If a chain manager L has zero members in its chain, and then its local
public projection store (authored by some remote author R) has a projection
that contains L, then adopt R's projection and start humming consensus.
* Handle "cross-talk" across projection stores, when chain membership
is changed administratively, e.g. chain was [a,b,c] then changed to merely
[a], but that change only happens on a. Servers b & c continue to use
stale projections and scribble their projection suggestions to a, causing
it to flap.
What's really cool about the flapping handling is that it *works*. I
wasn't thinking about this scenario when designing the flapping logic, but
it's really nifty that this extra scenario causes a to flap and then a's
inner projection remains stable, yay!
* Add complaints when "cross-talk" is observed.
* Fix flapping sleep time throttle.
* Fix bug in the machi_projection_store.erl's bookkeeping of the
max epoch number when flapping.
Introduce machi_flu_psup:start_flu_package/4 as a way to start all
related FLU processes
* The projection store
* The chain manager
* The FLU itself
... as well as linked processes.
http://www.snookles.com/scotttmp/flu-tree-20150430.png shows one FLU
running, "a". The process registered "a" is the append server,
"some-prefix" for the sequencer & writer for the current <<"some-prefix">>
file, and a process each for 3 active TCP connections to that FLU.
