[broken counters was.. Re: [nsp] Re: CiSCO IOS 12.* source code stolen]

[Andrew Fort]

On 16/05/2004 7:08 AM, jlewis at lewis.org wrote:

>Hmm...maybe the counter bugs will finally get fixed...but we'll have to
>run bootleg IOS to get the fixes.
>  
>

heh.  I asked Phil Harris about this at a networkers recently (too good 
an opportunity and all).  His answer was essentially "well, the software 
interrupt called after packet send/receive (i.e., the one that does 
counters, etc) can get masked, so if it does, your counters don't get 
updated..."; this doesn't seem to add up entirely to some of the types 
of counter bugs I'm sure we've all seen, but it's one explanation.  I 
guess it's just one of the most obvious signs of the aging IOS 
'scheduler'.  Bring on that nonstop kernel, I say :).

-afort