shibd not writing to its log files

[Goldberg, Arthur P]

Let me preface this message by saying that I greatly appreciate the thought and work that everyone, including you Scott, have put into creating SAML and Shibboleth, making them available as open-source technology to the world, and supporting them with documentation, bug fixes, and user support. That is a great accomplishment which all of you should be proud of. And we at Sinai appreciate our ability to use what you all have produced.

But I'm offended by your response Scott because it implies that my intention is to criticize your work (I did not know who wrote the logging library) and that the only alternatives are that either 1) I revise the logging library or 2) the software remains as is. My intention was to initiate a discussion about design, not who does the implementation. It seems to me that the former should be resolved before deciding on the latter. (For the record, however, I cannot patch Shibboleth logging, as that activity falls outside my responsibilities at Sinai.)

WRT the design of error handling by Shibboleth logging I maintain that it would be useful for shibd users to receive error messages in the special situation when shibd cannot write to the log files. Such errors would certainly have been helpful for me.

One of the courses I created and teach is Software Engineering for Biomedical researchers. When presenting error handling I start with the old adage Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO). I assert to my students that GIGO is wrong, and that the adage should be replaced with Garbage In Helpful Error Messages Out. In my opinion, that principle applies here.

Regards
Arthur


-- 

Arthur Goldberg, PhD
Mount Sinai Data Warehouse <https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/msdw/>
Scientific Computing and Data <https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/minervalab/scientific-computing-and-data>
Associate Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences
Institute for Data Science and Genomic Technology
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
 
Arthur.Goldberg at mssm.edu
646 526 5020
Zoom <https://mssm.zoom.us/my/arthur.goldberg?pwd=LzByMGJOZC9wM3A2aHV6OU94eUtSQT09> 
 


On 7/19/22, 9:20 PM, "Cantor, Scott" <cantor.2 at osu.edu> wrote:

    USE CAUTION: External Message.

    On 7/19/22, 8:41 PM, "Goldberg, Arthur P" <arthur.p.goldberg at mssm.edu> wrote:

    >    Normally, of course, shibd writes errors, warnings, and so forth to its log files. But it’s a special situation
    > when shibd cannot write to the log files, for any reason. If it were my software, I would have it recognize that
    > special situation and convert all exceptions that arise from being unable to write to the log files into error
    > messages to stderr (or the equivalent on non-Unix platforms).

    Feel free to figure out how to patch the logging library I didn't write to do that.

    -- Scott