[Swift-devel] Can we re-activate coaster worker timeout capability?

[Michael Wilde]

When using Swift with the OSG Glidein Workload Management System, which we need to do for the ExTENCI project, as well as with our own pilot job tools in bin/grid, we often will have more workers starting than we need.

It would be handy to re-instate some variation of the older worker timeout feature, under which when coasters is running in persistent passive mode, a worker option can specify a timeout period after which the worker will cleanly exit after some time period T of no work.

That way the pilot factory can aggressively launch workers, and if it overshoots, the excess workers will exit to avoid wasting site CPU resources.

Can that be done in a reasonable manner, avoiding the pitfalls that led to the removal of the timeout feature?

If so, I'll file an enhancement bug for this.

- Mike