Re: Commit: Option to disable the use of debuginfod

[Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>]

Hi Luis,

>>    I have recently seen several bug reports about readelf and objdump
>>    unexpectedly slowing down.  The problem turns out to be due to
>>    attempts to access debuginfod servers which are either not there or
>>    just slow to respond.  So to help alleviate this problem I am applying
>>    the patch below which adds a new command line option:
> 
> If it slows things down by default, shouldn't we change the default to 
> disabled (I'm assuming it is enabled by default) 

Yes, it is enabled by default.

I did think of changing the default to be "disabled" but then this would
mean introducing a conflict between the current binutils and future
binutils releases.  Plus my feeling is that it is better to provide the
user with as much information as possible by default, since these tools
are basically used when investigating something.  Skipping information
because it might slow things down ought to be definite action taken by
the user rather than a default action taken by the tool.


> and/or look into improving the code so it doesn't slow things down?

Well the slow down is in the debuginfod client library code, or more
accurately in the communication with the servers, so there is not a lot
that we can do on our end.  At least I don't think so.  Maybe there is
a timeout setting that we could tweak.  I have to confess that I am not
exactly an expert in the debuginfod code...

Cheers
   Nick