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Penalty at Startup
Authored by: dashard on Jun 20, '02 05:53:00PM

There seems to be a downside to this, although maybe it's just an inconvenience.

When I restarted for the first time after using this tip to add 4 'IP aliases,' the startup sequence halted at 'Starting Directory Services' for a full 2+ minutes. That's a full 120+ seconds of appearing as if there is a major problem that's been introduced by mucking around in NetInfo (and we all know that there is infinite possibility to screw things up in NetInfo). Then, after this very long pause, startup continues as normal and the system operates normally.

I verified these 'IP aliases' as the culprits by removing them and restarting. Zipped right through the startup. I decided to add them back one at a time to see if perhaps one of the entries was causing the problem, and, voila, instant delay at the directory services startup section. It wasn't any particular one, it was any and all. FWIW, the delay wasn't any longer with all four aliases added back than it was with just one. I called Apple and completely baffled the tier 2 that I spoke with (such fun). He was no help.

Can anyone else confirm this behavior?



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!! IMPORTANT !!
Authored by: serversurfer on Jun 21, '02 06:22:39AM
I overlooked this omission in the original tip or I would have mentioned this before:

For the impatient:
Remove the serves property from the server aliases you create. Yup, just delete it completely. No, not just the Value, the whole Property. (Click once on the serves line and choose Delete from the Edit menu.


For the gurus-in-training:
The serves Property for a machine subdirectory tells NetInfo to contact that machine on startup and at regular intervals thereafter and query it for information to be added to the local (your) NetInfo database. (Signified by the ./local value.)

The hang is caused while the system waits for the requests to time out. (Your friends computer is unlikely to respond to such requests and if it does, your box will probably exhibit much more unusual symptoms than a startup hang.) As I said, the system automatically attempts to update this info at regular intervals. If you check your system log, you will find a task called lookupd reporting failed connections to the IPs you set up every few minutes. Do the above and all will be well. Guru Wisdom for the Patient: Dupe localhost; call it myduddy, delete serves, etc; then dupe mybuddy from then on. Saves a step.

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