Re: [tcpm] TCP Tuning for HTTP - update

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

On 8/16/2016 11:45 PM, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> Hi Joe,
>
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 10:23:01PM -0700, Joe Touch wrote:
>>> Other people in the HTTP *and* TCP communities have commented that such a
>>> document would be very useful, whether or not it's something "new that
>>> wasn't known 20 years ago". 
>> We don't need to issue new documents for people who don't read old ones.
> I've just checked the two documents you referenced. They seem to be very
> well detailed but they are *scientific* research. What Daniel created are
> configuration advises for people who need to configure their servers. Yes
> as you mentionned they look like man pages precisely because the purpose
> is to ensure they're easily understood by people who are just seeking some
> help to improve their configuration. You cannot expect a server admin to
> read scientific papers explaining some TCP models with some formulas to
> know what to do on their servers.
Actually, my docs are the tip of the iceberg, addressing the reasons why
some of these configuration recommendations make sense.

There are many other sites - and books - that already indicate how to
configure systems efficiently.

So if your argument is that a man page summary is needed, sure - but
again, is a new one needed? And why is this then needed as an RFC?

> Also, I don't know if there have been any update, but these documents use
> SunOS 4.1.3 running on a sparc 20 as a reference. While I used to love
> working on such systems 20 years ago, they predate the web era and systems
> have evolved a lot since to deal with high traffic. ...
Yes, and discussing those issues would be useful - but not in this
document either.

> ...
> So you need to expect that only researchers and maybe TCP stack developers
> will find your work useful these days, server admins can hardly use this
> anymore. However it is very possible that some TCP stacks have taken benefit
> of your work to reach the level of performance they achieve right now, I
> don't know. Thus I think that Daniel's work completes quite well what you've
> done in that it directly addresses people's concerns without requiring the
> scientific background.
Let me see if I get your complete argument:

    - the appropriate refs are 20 years old
    - server admins need a doc

What exactly do server admins need regarding Nagle (which is configured
inside the app already), socket sizing (configured inside the app), etc?

I.e., at the most this is a man page (specific to an OS). At the least,
this isn't useful at all.

Joe