connectors/jk/native/TODO

TODO for tomcat-connectors

$Id$

1) Optimize "distance"
======================

Sorting the list of balanced workers by distance would be nice, but:
How to combine the sorting with the offset implementation (especially
useful for strategy BUSYNESS under low load).

2) Reduce number of string comparisons in most_suitable
========================================================

a) redirect/domains

It would be easy to improve the redirect string b an integer, giving the
index of the worker in the lb. Then lb would not need to search for the redirect worker.

The same way, one could add a list with indizes to workers in the same domain.
Whenever domain names are managed (init and status worker update) one would
scan the worker list and update the index list.

Finally one could have a list of workers, whose domain is the same as the redirect
attribute of the worker, because that's also something we consider.

What I'm not sure about, even in the existing code, is the locking between updates
by the status worker and the process local information about the workers,
especially in the case, when status updates a redirect or domain attribute.

I would like to keep these attributes and the new index arrays process local,
and the processes should find out about changes made by status to shm (redirect/domain)
and then rebuild their data. No need to get these on every request from the shm,
only the check for up-to-date should be made.

b) exact matches for jvmRoutes

Could we use hashes instead of string comparisons all the time?
I'm not sure, if a good enough hash takes longer than a string comparison though.

3) Optimization of JK_WORKER_USABLE
====================================

We use that one quite a lot. Since it is now a combination of four
ANDs of negated values, we could also do

#define JK_WORKER_USABLE(w)   (!((w)->in_error_state || ($w)->is_stopped || (w)->is_disabled || (w)->is_busy))

I think it we should consider combining the flags into an additional
is_usable (makes checks easier, but of course we would have to set it
every time we change one of the four other flags). But in terms of
performance that happens rarely.

4) Code separation between factory, validate and init in lb
============================================================

The factory contains:

        private_data->worker.retries = JK_RETRIES;
        private_data->s->recover_wait_time = WAIT_BEFORE_RECOVER;

I think, this should move to validate() or init().
It might even be obsolete, because in init, we already have:

    pThis->retries = jk_get_worker_retries(props, p->s->name,
    p->s->retries = pThis->retries;
    p->s->recover_wait_time = jk_get_worker_recover_timeout(props, p->s->name, WAIT_BEFORE_RECOVER);
    if (p->s->recover_wait_time < WAIT_BEFORE_RECOVER)
        p->s->recover_wait_time = WAIT_BEFORE_RECOVER;

Then: In validate there is

                p->lb_workers[i].s->error_time = 0;

So shouldn't there also be

                p->lb_workers[i].s->maintain_time = time(NULL);

5) Refactor Logging
====================

a) Use the same code files for the request logging functions in Apache 1.3 and 2.0.

b) Use the same code files for piped logging in Apache 1.3 and 2.0.

6) ajpget
==========

Combine ajplib and Apache ab to an ajp13 commandline client ajpget.

7) Manage lb method and locking via jk_status
=============================================

It's not yet contained in the shm.

8) Parsing workers.properties
=============================

Parsing of workers.properties aditionally to just looking up attributes
would help users to detect syntax errors in the file. At the moment
no information will be logged, e.g. when attributes contain typos.

9) Persisting workers.properties
================================

Make workers.properties persist from inside status worker.

10) Reduce number of uses of time(NULL)
=======================================

We use time(NULL) a lot. Since it only has resolution of a second,
I'm asking myself, if we could update the actual time in only a few
places and get time out of some variables when needed. The same does
not hold true for millisecond time, but in several cases we use the time,
it's not very critical, that it is exact. These cases are related to:

Some of this is already been done, the remaining parts are:

- last_access for usage against timeout value that is ~minutes
- error_time for usage against retry timeout that is ~minutes
- uri_worker_map checked for usage against JK_URIMAP_RELOAD=1 minute

So I think, it would suffice to set an actual time at the beginning of
the request/response cycle (used by everything before the request is being
sent over the socket) and maybe after the response shows up/ an error occurs
(for everything else, if there is).

For which cases would it be OK, to use the time before sending to TC:
- uri_worker_map "checked" (uri map lookup starts early)
- setting/testing last_access in
  - jk_ajp_common.c:ajp_connect_to_endpoint()
  - jk_ajp_common.c:ajp_get_endpoint()
  - jk_ajp_common.c:ajp_maintain()

What about the others:
- setting last_access in init should use the actual time in
  jk_ajp_common.c:ajp_create_endpoint_cache()

- setting last_access again after the service could also use the 
  actual time in jk_ajp_common.c:ajp_done()
- setting error_time should better use the actual time
  jk_lb_worker.c service(): rec->s->error_time = time(NULL);

The last two cases could again use the same time, which then would be needed
to be generated at the end or directly after service.

11) Access/Modification Time in shm
===================================

a) [Discussion] What will this generally be used for? At the moment,
only jk_status "uses" it, but it only sets the values, it never asks for them.

b) [Improvement, minor] jk_shm_set_workers_time() implicitly calls
jk_shm_sync_access_time(), but jk_status does:

            jk_shm_set_workers_time(time(NULL));
            /* Since we updated the config no need to reload
             * on the next request
             */
            jk_shm_sync_access_time();

two times. So depending on the idea of the functionality of these calls,
either set_workers_time and sync_access_time should be independently,
or the second call in jk_status coulkd be removed.

12) "Destroy" functionality
===========================

[Hint] Destroy on a worker never seems to free shm,
but I think that was already a flaw without shm.

13) Locks against shm
=====================

It might be an intersting experiment to implement an improved locking structure.
It looks like one would need in fact different types of locks.
In shm we have as read/write information:

Changed only by status worker:
- redirect, domain, lb_factor, sticky_session, sticky_session_force,
  recover_wait_time, retries, status (is_disabled, is_stopped).

These changes need some kind of reconfiguration in the threads after
change and before the next request/response. Since changes are rare,
here we would be better of, with a simple detect change and copy from
shm to process procedure. status updates the data in shm and after that
the time stamp on the shh. Each process checks the time stamp before
doing a request, and when the time stamp changed it does a writer CS
lock and updates it's local copy. All threads always do a reader CS
lock when doing a request/response cycle. Reader CS locks are concurrent,
writers are exclusive. So readers are not allowed, when the config data is being updated.

Changed by the threads themselves (and via reset by the status worker):
- counters needed by routing decisions (lb_value, readed, transferred, busy)
- timers needed by maintenance functions (error_time, servic_time/maintain_time)
- status is_busy, in_error_state
- uncritical data with no influence on routing decisions (max_busy, elected, errors,
  in_recovering)

Here again we could improve by using reader/writer locks. I have a
tendency for the PESSIMISTIC side of locking, but I think we could
shrink the code blocks that should be locked. At the monent they are
pretty big (most of get_most_suitable_worker).

Read-only: name and id.

By the way: at several places we don't check for errors on getting the lock.

14) What I didn't yet check
===========================

a) Correctness of is_busy handling

b) Correctness of the reset values after reset by status worker

c) What would be the exact behaviour, if shm does not work (memory case).
   Will this be a critical failure, or will we only experience a
   degradation in routing decisions.

d) How complete is mod_proxy_ajp/mod_proxy_balancer.
   Port changes from mod_jk to them.