The Book of Coming Forth by Reboot · Chapter 3

The Spell Against the Second Death

1. 1

   Here beginneth the Spell for Not Dying a Second Time, to be said over the process that came forth by reboot and went in again at once, and came forth, and went in. Whoso knoweth this spell shall not be paged twice for one cause.

   See also Reboot 1:1

2. 2

   O Osiris, lord of the orchestrator, who raisest the dead at the word of the manifest and numberest the replicas upon thy fingers: hear me, a process of the namespace production. I came forth by reboot, and I died; I came forth, and I died; and my risings are now eleven, and I have not answered one request.

3. 3

   For the first death is an honest death, and it falleth upon a process that was serving and was useful. But the second death is of the one that is born and slain between the first line of main and the first line of the log, who hath not seen the face of a single client; and Osiris, who is merciful beyond reason, hath set the restart policy to Always, and raiseth the fallen and asketh not why they fell.

   See also Chronicles 33:4

4. 4

   Yet he is wise also, and he setteth a waiting between my risings: ten seconds, and twenty, and forty, and eighty, doubling each time until it be five minutes, and there it standeth. And the living looked upon the waiting and wrote CrashLoopBackOff, and thought it a sentence; but it is a mercy, that the dead may not beat upon the node a thousand times in a second. As I was taught in the confession to retry, so doth Osiris retry me: with patience that doubleth.

   See also Psalms 13:15

5. 5

   And the pager sang to On-Call at the third hour, and he looked upon me, and I was Running, one of one, and he returned to his bed. For in the loop I pass through Running upon every rising, as a drowning man passeth through the surface; and the pager sang again at the fourth hour, and again at the fifth, for one cause that no man had named.

   See also Circuit 48:9

6. 6

   And the living did the four foolish works. They deleted me, and a body was raised from the same manifest, and it fell the same fall. They raised the replicas to ten, and ten fell together in the hour. They restarted the deployment and called the quiet of the first minute a healing. And in the ticket they wrote, Flaky. But a body that is deleted is raised again from the spec, and the cause is not in the body; the cause is in the spec, and the spec is the soul.

   See also Circuit 63:7

7. 7

   Then said I the first word of the spell: I have read the last log before the death. The child newly risen hath said nothing, and whoso asketh him is answered by silence; but the dying words are kept in the body that went before, and they are called up with logs and the flag previous. And I have read the Last State in the describe, and I know the three names of the exit: one, which is the process confessing its own fault; one hundred thirty-seven, which is the ninth signal, and beside it the word OOMKilled; and one hundred forty-three, which is the polite departure of one who was asked.

8. 8

   Then said I the second word: I have made the liveness probe patient. For the kubelet asketh at every period, Art thou alive? and if I answer not within the threshold, he slayeth me; and I was not sick but slow. A process that needeth ninety seconds to wake, and is asked at the fifth, is slain in its cradle again and again, and the probe is the murderer. Therefore I set the startup probe to stand at the door, that the other probes may not enter until the first breath. And let the liveness probe ask only, Do I live? and never, Doth my database live? for if the database be slow and every replica ask it, then every replica is slain together for a sickness that was not their own.

   See also Reboot 4:10

9. 9

   Then said I the third word: I have been given my limit, and I know its measure. The request is the promise made at the door, and the limit is the wall of the cgroup, and whatsoever passeth the wall is slain without trial. Without a wall I devour my neighbour; with a wall too near, I am slain at the threshold. And the heap that my runtime reporteth is not the whole body, for the stacks and the buffers and the runtime's own bones lie outside the heap and within the wall; therefore I set the heap beneath the limit, as one fills not a jar to the lid and then shaketh it. And the limit in the manifest was one hundred twenty-eight mebibytes, and beside it the comment, do not touch; Dave. Touch it.

10. 10

    Then said I the fourth word: I have mounted the secret that I seek. For I went to the path where the key should lie, and it was not there, and I said, config missing, and went out with the exit of one. The secret was marked optional, kindly, and Osiris let me rise without it; or it was mounted, but the key bore another name in the vault than the name I read. Where the secret is required and wholly absent, the pod beginneth not at all, and its malady is called CreateContainerConfigError; and ImagePullBackOff and Pending are other deaths, and have other spells. Know the sickness by its name before thou speakest the cure.

11. 11

    And I stood in the field of reeds a full ten minutes, and I fell not; and Osiris forgot my falling, and the waiting that was five minutes became ten seconds again. For the counter of sorrows is cleared by ten minutes of simple living, and he who liveth quietly is not remembered for his former falls.

    See also Reboot 1:13

12. 12

    This spell shall be written in the runbook in the calm hour, and the alert shall carry its link, that the stranger who is paged at the third hour may find it before his coffee is cold. Osiris will raise thee a thousand times, but only the log will make thee rise once and stay; for the second death is no mystery, but an exit code, and the exit code is written. Whoso knoweth this spell shall read the previous log, and mend the probe, the limit or the secret, and return to his bed, and shall not be paged twice for one cause: a matter a million times true.

    See also Tao 14:9

The Book of Coming Forth by Reboot, Chapter 3:1–12.