From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from merit-proxy02.merit.edu ([207.75.116.194]:49182 "EHLO merit-proxy02.merit.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753216Ab1HENe7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Aug 2011 09:34:59 -0400 Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 09:34:56 -0400 From: Jim Rees To: Max Matveev Cc: linux-nfs@vger.kernel.org, steved@redhat.com Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] Update nfs(5) manpage - timeo for NFS/TCP Message-ID: <20110805133456.GA17018@merit.edu> References: <20110805021903.C84608198734@regina.usersys.redhat.com> <20110805124015.GA16926@merit.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <20110805124015.GA16926@merit.edu> Sender: linux-nfs-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Jim Rees wrote: Max Matveev wrote: NFS/TCP does linear backoff then retransmiting - the manpage was mistakenly asserting the "no backoff" theory. Actually, now that I made you change the wording, I think the original wording was correct. "Backoff" refers to an increase in the interval between retries. Since the interval is constant, there is no backoff. Check this: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/lam/NRL/backoff.html So NFS over TCP uses a fixed retry interval, not a linear one. I don't think it's correct to say "no backoff" but it's also not correct to say it's "linear backoff," which implies the retry interval is linear in the number of retries (you could argue that it's linear and the slope is zero but I think that's misleading). The correct term might be "fixed backoff" or "fixed retry interval."