Re: Request: timeout option for remote operations, esp. "git fetch"

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 12, 2013, 17:45 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq1u2likea.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <52825EBF.3050603@zytor.com>

"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> On 11/10/2013 12:17 PM, Eric Wong wrote:
>> "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>>> When a remote server is unavailable or very slow, some git commands can
>>> stall out indefinitely.  It would be a very good thing if remote
>>> commands -- but especially git fetch -- could be given a timeout.
>> 
>> We've had SO_KEEPALIVE on git and ssh transports since e47a8583 (2011-12-06)
>> SO_KEEPALIVE for http was added recently (a15d069a) and will be in git 1.8.5
>> 
>> Do you want a shorter timeout for slow (but still alive) servers?
>> 
>
> Yes; note that SO_KEEPALIVE only guarantees that the server is alive at
> the TCP socket level.  If the server is overloaded but technically alive
> it may still make no meaningful forward progress.

Which means that your original wish may not be granted with SO_KEEPALIVE at all, no? I was wondering if you wanted a forced timeout based on alarm(2), something similar to what you added to git-daemon in 960deccb (git-daemon: timeout, eliminate double DWIM, 2005-10-19).