nnrpd fails when cycbuff.conf is updated

[Russ Allbery]

Matus \"fantomas\" Uhlar <uhlar at fantomas.sk> writes:

> I just updated cycbuff.conf - added one cycbuff to one metacycbuff to
> increase its size. I found out that nnrpd rejects connections with 503
> (NNTP server unavailable). The logs say:

> Aug 26 10:46:38 virtual nnrpd[54999]: CNFS-sm: No magic cookie found for cycbuff FOUR, initializing
> Aug 26 10:46:38 virtual nnrpd[54999]: CNFS-sm: CNFSflushhead: write failed (-1 bytes): Bad file descriptor
> Aug 26 10:46:38 virtual nnrpd[54999]: SM storage method 'cnfs' failed initialization
> Aug 26 10:46:38 virtual nnrpd[54999]: SM one or more storage methods failed initialization
> Aug 26 10:46:38 virtual nnrpd[54999]: cant initialize storage method, one or more storage methods failed initialization

> Anybody has an idea how to fix this? 

> Of course, i know starting innd will properly initialize the cycbuff
> (maybe reloading storage.conf too?). But I would like to avoid server
> being unavailable at such time.

> Comments?

Basically, don't add a new cycbuff until such time as you can restart innd
to initialize it, because otherwise other CNFS clients will have the
problem that you describe.  nnrpd opens the storage manager read-only and
therefore can't initialize itself.

The downtime hit isn't too bad; all you have to do is a:

    ctlinnd xexec innd

(Unfortunately, storage.conf isn't a configuration file that can be
reloaded.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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