Subject: Abstract API and Broken Scopes

From: Mark Handley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 14:37:06 -0400

Dave Thaler and I were just reviewing MZAP open issues, and one
question came up that we thought we should consult this list about:

In the Malloc Abstract API, when the client asks for the admin scopes
that apply to be enumerated, should the server return all the scopes
it knows about, or should it hide scopes that MZAP reveals to be
broken?

Scope zones can be broken because they're not convex, not closed, or
overlap with another zone in address range.  If the zone is not
convex, we might still want to allocate an address from it.  In the
other cases I'm not sure.

One option might be for the API to return all the scope zones and to
have a status code associated with each zone with a value indicating
the zone is OK, or the type of problem detected.  User applications
can then choose to present broken scope zones to the user or not as
they think appropriate rather than having this information filtered
below the API.

Comments?

Cheers,
	Mark

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From: Ross Finlayson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 12:58:05

>it knows about, or should it hide scopes that MZAP reveals to be

I think it's safest/best for applications not to be told anything about
admin scopes that are broken.  Learning about broken admin scopes should be
the responsibility of system administrator(s), using some separate "MZAP
management" API (e.g., tied in with SNMP or whatever).

We should be keeping things simple for application developers, and not
overloading them with functionality that really belongs under system
administration.

>If the zone is not
>convex, we might still want to allocate an address from it.

I'd rather see such zones 'fixed' first.  Keeping a non-convex zone hidden
from applications will provide an additional incentive to get it fixed.

	Ross.

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From: Dave Thaler <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 19:52:25 -0400 (EDT)

> from applications will provide an additional incentive to get it fixed.

Since no one else has responded yet, I'll say that I agree with
Ross's points above.

-Dave