On 05/16/2019 02:56 AM, William Brown wrote:
Replying to both Simon and Ludwig in the one mail ... To just comment to one point from Ludwig:This may sound too negative, I agree that logging deserves attention and improvement, but we need to agree on what we want to achieve.I don't think this is negative, at all and I think it's exactly the kind of feedback I wanted. :) So thank you!Hi William, I am more than interested! I'd like to learn it one day anyway. So if there will be no objections and we'll go forward now, I think, it is important to agree on some points of decreasing a bus factor: - As you said, it should have very detailed comments on all of the language features and technics you'll use. - I think it will be nice to have an additional documentation which will describe the basic setup for the development you use. All the toold you need to develop, compile, test and debug. - Also, some nice links for the basic tutorials on Rust types, concepts, etc. - I think, we should have detailed unit tests. It will help to understand the code better and we will have less bugs (hopefully).So I'm writing a document for the wiki to cover this *and* rust supports tests as part of the system - that will be all be included. Is that acceptable?And the final and big point I wanted to mention: - We should be prepared for a slow review process because we have quite limited recources in the team and a lot of work should be done (WebUI still has to be refactored to React, and it is only a small piece of the workload). Also, I think, it makes sense to have the smallest Rust PRs that can be put together as an independent unit.That's totally reasonable. I'll try to keep it to small parts and will build up as we go. See below for ideas on how I'll work toward this.But everything is just my opinion and I don't know what others think and if everyone is prepared to join it. I am feeling excited though :) Thanks, Simon P.S. check the contribution guide please. Espesially a part about 'rebase-force-push'. I think it is nice not to force push during the review process (and rebase-squash only after you got an ACK).Yep, I saw this change. I'll keep it in mind :)On 15 May 2019, at 19:37, Ludwig <lkrispen@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Hi William, this is a good starting point to discuss and decide how to move forward with logging (although it looks like you are already some steps ahead). I have no strong ties to existing logging format and if we do it in rust or not I don't care, but I do not want to use existing functionality for the sake af a new unified approach. First we need to define what is the purpose and usage of our logs, what do we want to keep or extend. I see these main area: - statistics - auditing (authentications, modifications) . debugging (for my usage the most important aspect) Next: what are the real problems - performance: yes, it would be nice to have less logging impact on performance, but I haven't seen real complaints and doing it differently does not guarantee better performance, we have debug levels (like tracing) which are not usable because they slow down everything, I do not think this will be resolved by just replacing the library - information: we continue to add information to the logs, and there are still open requests So: If I look at your suggestions I do like some and have concerns with others, and I am not sure if the priorities are right. You list a couple of tickets related to logging, but forgot others, eg: https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/47822 - improve logging of ACL decisions https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/48680 - enable logging for 3rd party libs https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/50002 - improve password policy logging https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/50187 - improve replication loggingThese are all things that you you are correct, that I missed. So I want to focus on your point about what we want from logs, IE stats, auditing, debugging. I think this is a great summary of what we want, but to make it more detailed: * Stats about operations from start to finish * Auditing of client operations * Debugging of client operations * Debugging of internal server machinery and state * Reporting of errors outside of the normal operation system. Today we current have: access - auditing of operations at a highlevel audit - auditing of modifications and writes error - debugging of internal server machinery (we tend not to enable the levels of debugging operations ...) So I think there is room to improve. Now I think that performance so far is only a barrier in terms of preventing us from adding more detail, because it slows down operations. This is why it's pretty high on the list of "to fix".these requests for improvements of logging exist for quite some time, they were accepted as useful and good to have, but we didn't have the capacity to work on them. The work is tedious, going thru ACL or replication code and decide what and how to log better requires good knowledge of the areas and is not fancy - but I wonder if the effort wouldn't be spent better to improve the "what" and not the "how". Now: some comments on your suggestions. - perf: I think everything we can do to reduce locking in logging is a good thing, if we do logging more asynchronous it is ok for me as long as we can see the "real time" of the event and get the logs ordered. If replacing the "log" component by a rust implemention helps it is good. We could in a first step keep the slapi_log_* api and only do it more efficientYes, this was my original thought was to write the rust impl in parallel and then have the existing slapi_log_* just translate over to it.- merging of logs: I do not like the idea to have everything in one log file, if you say we can provide tools to split, we can also provide tools to merge. The logs have a different format and for good reasons, eg the audit log is ldif like and can easily be used to replay changes, why force it into another format. Also, in my opinion, the different logs have a different life time. You might want to keep all audit logs, keep the error log for the main events for some longer time than the fast growing access log, defining log rotation based on the log type is a benfit in my opinion - operation orientation: there are logging events which are independent of operations, especially in replicatio. I would not want to artificially enforce a "operation context" eg for changelog processing, tombstone purging,..... - format: for machines it might be good that logs are machine readable, but I did spend a lot of times reading logs and lokkinng for patterns and clues, I think as soon as they are in json I will stop doing this.These are good counter points, and I think that on some reflection, I agree with them. Perhaps there is a better way to think about this. We could implement this, such that from the "server" side, all log messages are sent to the log thread, and then the log thread can take that log event and then split out multiple logs that are relevant to the focus areas. The server would still build up a single "log-unit" structure, and then the log thread would turn this into a set of relevant access, audit, error, and operation/profilling/debugging messages. That way the server can focus on operations, and can log as-it-pleases, then the log thread can actually turn that data into useful contextualised information. For example, an operation could build a structure (hypothetical, has no bearing on reality ...) such as: [ { timestamp, operation start }, { timestamp, modify }, { timestamp, bind dn }, { timestamp, ACL decision is .... }, { timestamp, nentries = 5 }, { timestamp, dn=x modify cn }, { timestamp, dn=y modify uid }, { timestamp, plugin memberOf err=??? }, ] This would be sent as a block to the log thread, and we could then process it out such that: [ { timestamp, operation start }, -> access { timestamp, modify }, -> access { timestamp, bind dn }, -> access { timestamp, ACL decision is .... }, { timestamp, nentries = 5 }, -> access { timestamp, dn=x modify cn }, -> audit { timestamp, dn=y modify uid }, -> audit { timestamp, plugin memberOf err=??? }, -> error ] Finally, the whole "structured" item, in all it's glorious, gory detail, could go to the operation log, along with timings, and we can then profile and get performance data from that. This way we still have the current logging expectations, but can then add others and retain high amounts of detail for debugging as we require. Does this sound like a reasonable approach?
yes
I wonder if we really could have one api eg slapi_log_* and different implementations, keep the current, implement a new one and allow to choseI think this would be a "final goal", so to formalise the stages: * Add build tooling and a simple (dummy) log thread as a "getting started". Supplement with documentation on wiki. * Fill-in the log thread to support an "operation log", and add basic operation log hooks in the server. * Fill in more operation log points in the server to build detail * change slapi_log_err to log to the new rust thread, continue to generate error file * change slapi_log_audit to log to the new rust thread, continue to generate audit file * change slapi_log_access to log to the new rust thread, continue to generate access file. * remove former logging code
This may sound too negative, I agree that logging deserves attention and improvement, but we need to agree on what we want to achieve. Best regards, Ludwig On 05/10/2019 05:13 AM, William Brown wrote:Hi all, So I think it's time for me to write some logging code to improve the situation. Relevant links before we start: https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/49415 http://www.port389.org/docs/389ds/design/logging-performance-improvement.html https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/50350 https://pagure.io/389-ds-base/issue/50361 All of these links touch on issues around logging, and I think they all combine to create three important points: * The performance of logging should be improved * The amount of details (fine grain) and information in logs should improve * The structure of the log content should be improved to aid interaction (possibly even machine parsable) I will turn this into a design document, but there are some questions I would like some input to help answer as part of this process to help set the direction and tasks to achieve. -- Should our logs as they exist today, continue to exist? I think that my view on this is "no". I think if we make something better, we have little need to continue to support our legacy interfaces. Of course, this would be a large change and it may not sit comfortably with people. A large part of this thinking is that the "new" log interface I want to add is focused on *operations* rather than auditing accesses or changes, or over looking at errors. The information of both the current access/audit/error would largely be melded into a single operation log, and then with tools like logconv, we could parse and extract information that would behave the same way as access/error/audit. At the same time - I can see how people *may* want a "realtime" audit of operations as they occur (IE access log), but this still today is already limited by having to "wait" for operations to complete. In a crash scenario, we would be able to still view the logs that are queued, so I think there are not so many concerns about losing information in these cases (in fact we'd probably have more). -- What should the operation log look like? I think it should be structured, and should be whole-units of information, related to a single operation. IE only at the conclusion of the operation is it logged (thus the async!). It should support arbitrary, nested timers, and would *not* support log levels - it's a detailed log of the process each query goes through. An example could be something like: [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id] - start operation [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id] - start time = time ... [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id] - started internal search '(some=filter)' [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id parentop=id] - start nested operation [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id parentop=id] - start time = time ... ... [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id parentop=id] - end time = time... [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id parentop=id] - duration = diff end - start [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id parentop=id] - end nested operation - result -> ... [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id] - ended internal search '(some=filter)' ... [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id] - end time = time [timestamp] - [conn=id op=id] - duration = diff end - start Due to the structured - blocked nature, there would be no interleaving of operation messages. therefor the log would appear as: [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00] - start operation [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00] - start time = time ... [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00] - started internal search '(some=filter)' [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00 parentop=01] - start nested operation [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00 parentop=01] - start time = time ... ... [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00 parentop=01] - end time = time... [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00 parentop=01] - duration = diff end - start [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00 parentop=01] - end nested operation - result -> ... [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00] - ended internal search '(some=filter)' ... [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00] - end time = time [timestamp] - [conn=00 op=00] - duration = diff end - start [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00] - start operation [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00] - start time = time ... [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00] - started internal search '(some=filter)' [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00 parentop=01] - start nested operation [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00 parentop=01] - start time = time ... ... [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00 parentop=01] - end time = time... [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00 parentop=01] - duration = diff end - start [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00 parentop=01] - end nested operation - result -> ... [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00] - ended internal search '(some=filter)' ... [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00] - end time = time [timestamp] - [conn=22 op=00] - duration = diff end - start An alternate method for structuring could be a machine readable format like json: { 'timestamp': 'time', 'duration': ...., 'bind': 'dn of who initiated operation', 'events': [ 'debug': 'msg', 'internal_search': { 'timestamp': 'time', 'duration': ...., } ], } This would make writing tools like logconv much easier, as we wouldn't need regex or others to parse and understand these logs. -- Should our log interface from slapi_log_err etc change? This is a super tricky question ... I think the answer is yes - we are using log_err for messages that should be associated to an operation - and additionally, we often disable or lower the level of error messages due to the low performance. It would be hard to shift behaviour and expectations around the behaviour of this log, so a better idea would be to fix things oourselves by adjusting how we log in plugins. We'll probably always need to support log_err, but then those developers would not gain the benefit of our improvements. We could translate log_err to emit simple text messages into the events section of the log, but for full benefit, using the operation log interfaces would be best. -- Should we still improve the performance of logs as they exist today? Probably yes - but I think there is a good reason to approach this differently. I think we should be log_async.c and log_operation.c in parallel to existing logging, and have a similer feature gating flag in use like we have done for other features. We can then build this in parallel and gain confidence and experience with it. Once complete, we could then change the log_access, log_audit and log_err macros/functions to call related log_op calls, or rewrite those logs to have log_async.c execution backends. SUMMARY: * Make slapi_log_op and an async log system in parallel to existing log infra * Determine a deprecation or improvement plan for other log types * Port log types to async, or remove them. -- Sincerely, William _______________________________________________ 389-devel mailing list -- 389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to 389-devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_______________________________________________ 389-devel mailing list -- 389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to 389-devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx— Sincerely, William Brown Senior Software Engineer, 389 Directory Server SUSE Labs _______________________________________________ 389-devel mailing list -- 389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to 389-devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-- Red Hat GmbH, http://www.de.redhat.com/, Registered seat: Grasbrunn, Commercial register: Amtsgericht Muenchen, HRB 153243, Managing Directors: Charles Cachera, Michael Cunningham, Michael O'Neill, Eric Shander _______________________________________________ 389-devel mailing list -- 389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to 389-devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/389-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
