Re: openldap 2.3 recommended bdb version

[Howard Chu <hyc@symas.com>]

Aaron Richton wrote:
> > OpenLDAP 2.3 requires that you use the transactions patch to BDB
> > 4.2.52
>
>  Strictly speaking, this isn't true. It's greatly beneficial to run
>  with Degree 2 isolation, but if sites believe they have a compelling
>  reason to not use unofficial patches, they don't have to. It's
>  probably not in their best interest, but who are we to judge? (Until
>  they start asking openldap-software why their disks fill...)
>
>  I have a feeling that the Degree 2 isolation patch is going to become
>  a FAQ as 2.3 gets adopted. I've tried to summarize under "Which
>  version of BerkeleyDB should I use?" in the FAQ-O-Matic; revisions
>  encouraged. Hopefully this will eventually get to be a Google hit for
>  "BerkeleyDB 4.2.52 library needs TXN patch!"

Thanks for writing that. I've made some updates. Not completely happy 
with the focus on "Degree 2 isolation," as that's actually an 
independent issue. Really the point is that BDB 4.2 has a bug in its 
transaction initialization sequence that is fixed in 4.3, and the patch 
we provide for 4.2 is a hack to bypass the bug in one specific use case. 
The patch is by no means a general-purpose fix, and it does not provide 
Degree 2 isolation for BDB 4.2, and OpenLDAP does not invoke BDB 4.3's 
Degree 2 isolation support. I'm not sure the details are important 
enough to spell out in the FAQ, but still thinking about it.

--
 -- Howard Chu
 Chief Architect, Symas Corp.       Director, Highland Sun
 http://www.symas.com               http://highlandsun.com/hyc
 Symas: Premier OpenSource Development and Support