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 PROTECTED] Freeware and Technical Pages Insanity Palace of Metallica http://www.phildev.net/ http://www.ipom.com/ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759
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