Bind Queries log file format

[Warren Kumari]

On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 7:44 AM, MURTARI, JOHN <jm5903 at att.com> wrote:
>> We may move it to the end of the log message (bugs ticket #44606 has
>> been created for looking at it). Maybe its location was poor.. please
>> can everyone who participated in this thread say whether having it at
>> the end will be ok?
>
> It's really only for code debug.  I'd say give the admin a means via rndc/config
> to turn it on 'debug' if needed.  That also allows you to add anything else you might
> like in the future.


I suspect perhaps some of the thread got missed (or was unclear).

The reason for adding it to the main log file *by default* is because
of things like:
Customer: "My BIND went Boom! It's been running fine for many years,
and then for no reason at all it went Boom. Here are my log files..."
ISC: "Doh. Sorry. Unfortunately the log file doesn't have sufficient
debug info. Can you please turn on debug using <insert invocation>, so
that we have enough logging info next time this happens?"
Customer: "Bah. Ok. Will do...."
<Customer enables debugging. named runs again for many years. Either
named doesn't oops again, or, more likely, 3 years later customer
wonders why extra logging is on, and turns it off - and then 2 weeks
later named ooopes...>

The additional logging info is specifically for the unusual bugs,
which happen very rarely - asking customers to enable the additional
logs after a rare event (which might not happen again for months /
years) means that ISC cannot hunt down and squash the corner case
bugs...

W



> John
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Mukund Sivaraman <muks at isc.org>
> To: Alan Clegg <alan at clegg.com>
> Cc: bind-users at lists.isc.org
> Subject: Re: Bind Queries log file format
> Message-ID: <20170203164526.GA6221 at jurassic>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Fri, Feb 03, 2017 at 08:51:01AM -0600, Alan Clegg wrote:
>> On 2/3/17 8:01 AM, Mukund Sivaraman wrote:
>>
>> > We have the debug log level, but consider the case when an operator has
>> > a non-deterministic or rare crash that isn't reproducible because the
>> > operator has no information about what caused it. All we have is the
>> > config, log that was already generated before the crash and perhaps a
>> > backtrace and core to deduce the steps leading to the crash. It's not
>> > possible to re-run that scenario with debug logging.
>> >
>> > I'll create a ticket to put the client pointer at the end if that'll
>> > help, but note that the syntax in 9.10 was not consistent either. 9.10
>> > would log the client pointer when the client object didn't have a valid
>> > peer.
>>
>> Adding code to allow enabling or disabling this output on the fly would
>> work MUCH better (as an example, see "rndc querylog"/ options "querylog
>> [on | off ]").
>>
>> Adding a "well, we needed this one time" value to the middle of a
>> long-standardized log file does no customer any good and inconveniences
>> everyone.
>>
>> You own the code and can do whatever you want to, but I'd recommend
>> making the default log message what it was prior to 9.10 and adding
>> additional fields via pre-configuration and "rndc".
>
> We may move it to the end of the log message (bugs ticket #44606 has
> been created for looking at it). Maybe its location was poor.. please
> can everyone who participated in this thread say whether having it at
> the end will be ok?
>
> The query log is getting more fields at the end of it such as
> CLIENT-SUBNET logging.
>
> Making it a configurable option misses the reason it is the way it is -
> please see the first paragraph quoted above.
>
> This seems to be a case where having it is inconvenient, and not having
> it is inconvenient.
>
>                 Mukund
>
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-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf