Showing entries 1 to 1
Displaying posts with tag: programmer (reset)
Tracing down a problem, finding sloppy code

Daniel was tracking down what appeared to be a networking problem….

  • server reported 113 (No route to host)
  • However, an strace did not reveal the networking stack ever returning that.
  • On the other side, IP packets were actually received.
  • When confronted with mysteries like this, I get suspicious – mainly of (fellow) programmers.
  • I suggested a grep through the source code, which revealed  return -EHOSTUNREACH;
  • Mystery solved, which allowed us to find what was actually going on.

Lessons:

  1. Don’t just believe or presume the supposed origin of an error.
  2. Programmers often take shortcuts that cause grief later. I fully appreciate how the above code came about, but I still think it was wrong. Mapping a “similar” situation onto an existing …
[Read more]
Showing entries 1 to 1