> Could it be because once auto_bootstrap is off it's off forever? I am not entirely sure if this answers your question (I revisisted the thread history but I'm a bit confused myself): If by that you mean that given a node which was started with auto_bootstrap=false, and it successfully joined the ring etc, that changing autobootstrap to true in the configuration and restarting has no effect - then yes. The auto_bootstrap and initial_token settings only make sense on a node which has not yet been made part of the ring.
The only time at which it might bootstrap (word used in the sense of "populate with data by grabbing data form other nodes") is on initial start-up. As soon as start-up completes, it is written to the system tables that an initial start-up has been completed. (See StorageService.joinTokenRing(); the SystemTable.setBootstrapped(true) call at the end is what causes a future start-up to never trigger bootstrapping.) -- / Peter Schuller
