Checkpoint/Restart (was "no subject - file transmission")

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <17543 at ucsd.Edu> gkn at ucsd.Edu (Gerard K. Newman) writes:
>I think it's a bit unfair for every user of a system to have to
>invent a way to do this specific to their particular application.

I didn't say that every user needed to do this.  However, every
developer of long-running applications, who had BETTER be computer
literate, should consider such a feature.

>I agree that adding this capability to many varieties of Unix may
>require much skull sweat, especially to get it right.

It is utterly impossible to "get it right" in many cases.  Our Crays
also provide checkpointing, and often we find applications cannot be
properly restarted.  This is not Cray's fault, either, but is inherent
in the rich environment that a UNIX process may be interacting with,
some of which simply cannot be accurately reproduced at a later time.