Windows already has basic service watchdog'ing capability setup on the Services.MSC, and can perform restarts, and task scripts (such as emails) on total failure.
I believe that the latest versions of the Windows OpenAFS client are much more reliable. But in the past, this was very much not the case. We wrote our own scripts to watchdog the service, and of course our users found out even earlier than our scripts did. The problem is that even IF your service is 100 percent bug free and reliable, the OS/hardware surrounding the service may not be. This can sometimes put your service into a hostile environment in which it was not designed for. You cannot always anticipate in your software design logic for every contingency. Services will die, and sometimes they die because of erratic lower level return values from core OS kernel dlls, or RAM problems, no matter how bold Microsofts claims to reliability they claim. Your expectations of return values are only what is documented. Rodney > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:openafs-info- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Altman > Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 5:59 AM > To: Anders Magnusson > Cc: openafs > Subject: Re: [OpenAFS] The removal of afscreds.exe and afs_config.exe on > Windows Vista and Windows 7: Seeking Opinions > > It worries me that checking whether or not afsd_service.exe is running > is one of the goals. It implies that you have a high enough incident > rate where it is not that we have a problem to address that I may not > be aware of. > > Jeffrey Altman
