[rabbitmq-discuss] Network partitions

[Simon MacMullen]

On 03/10/2013 2:27AM, Alvaro Videla wrote:
> While I don't know about your exact problem keep in mind that a GC pause
> could appear as a network partition.

Err, what? Where did you get that idea?

> Also on some situation very big messages can cause network partitions
> since Erlang nodes won't be able to ping each other.

This is sadly still true. I had some idea that this was fixed in recent 
Erlang versions but I just tested with R16B01 and it's not.

It's pretty hard to run into though - you need to be sending huge enough 
messages that each message takes a multiple of net_ticktime (i.e. by 
default 60 seconds) to transfer.

I was only able to replicate it by building a cluster across a 
poor-quality wifi link. Which is obviously not recommended.

Still, even the theoretical possibility is disquieting, so I think a 
future RabbitMQ release will chunk large messages across clusters.

Cheers, Simon

-- 
Simon MacMullen
RabbitMQ, Pivotal