Sidecar should not always automatically restart on configuration change

[kodjo-anipah]

What?

By design when we apply a new configuration to a Sidecar, that specific collector gets restarted. This can cause problems for users who want to update the configuration without actually restarting the service.

Possible solutions would be:

1. Ask the user if a restart should happen
2. Possibility to configure some of them as no-auto-restart

Why?

This was already suggested in the past & and recently also reported as a bug in gz#220

Your Environment

• Graylog Version: 5.2.4
• OpenSearch Version:
• MongoDB Version:
• Operating System:
• Browser version:

[tellistone]

Perhaps we might add a check for if the sidecar is running.

---> if it is running, restart it ---> if it is not running, do not start it

seems like a reasonable compromise - the purpose of the restart is to apply the config to a running sidecar. No need to stop-start it, if it is already stopped - it'll pick up the new config when the user next starts it.

Should this be in core?

[kodjo-anipah]

@tellistone yes sidecar is core

[tellistone]

can this be solved Graylog side, or will a new Sidecar build be needed?

[kodjo-anipah]

can this be solved Graylog side, or will a new Sidecar build be needed?

Just by having a glance at the code, I think the sidecar would be the place to fix it as this is where the restart is actually happening, so that would need a new build. Should I move it over to the sidecar project? @tellistone

[tellistone]

Yes please