[question] Clarification on `mode=fail` in job spec

[BSick7]

A job contains a single task group with the following:

                "RestartPolicy": {
                    "Interval": 0,
                    "Attempts": 1,
                    "Delay": 0,
                    "Mode": "fail"
                },

If this job fails with exit code 1, it will continue to repeat the task.
Am I misunderstanding the nomad docs or is this expected?
How can I get the desired behavior of allowing only 1 execution (success or failure)?

(tail snippet of job status)

Allocations
ID        Eval ID   Node ID   Task Group  Desired  Status   Created At
3cdd82a5  6a13d452  c809c1ad  deploy      run      running  02/06/17 10:43:41 UTC

(tail snippet of alloc status of 3cdd82a5)

Recent Events:
Time                   Type        Description
02/06/17 13:21:30 UTC  Started     Task started by client
02/06/17 13:21:29 UTC  Restarting  Task restarting in 1ns
02/06/17 13:21:29 UTC  Terminated  Exit Code: 1, Exit Message: "Docker container exited with non-zero exit code: 1"
02/06/17 13:21:22 UTC  Started     Task started by client
02/06/17 13:21:21 UTC  Restarting  Task restarting in 1ns
02/06/17 13:21:21 UTC  Terminated  Exit Code: 1, Exit Message: "Docker container exited with non-zero exit code: 1"
02/06/17 13:21:13 UTC  Started     Task started by client
02/06/17 13:21:12 UTC  Restarting  Task restarting in 1ns
02/06/17 13:21:12 UTC  Terminated  Exit Code: 1, Exit Message: "Docker container exited with non-zero exit code: 1"
02/06/17 13:21:06 UTC  Started     Task started by client

[dadgar]

@BSick7 This seems like a bug. What version of Nomad are you on and can you provide a job that reproduces?

[BSick7]

Nomad version

nomad v0.5.2

Job spec (json)

I have scrubbed the docker image used as its private.
The important thing is that the command fails with exit code 1.

{
    "Job": {
        "Region": "us-east",
        "ID": "foo-migration",
        "ParentID": "",
        "Name": "foo-migration",
        "Type": "batch",
        "Priority": 50,
        "AllAtOnce": false,
        "Datacenters": [
            "us-east-1b",
            "us-east-1d",
            "us-east-1e"
        ],
        "Constraints": null,
        "TaskGroups": [
            {
                "Name": "deploy",
                "Count": 1,
                "Constraints": null,
                "Tasks": [
                    {
                        "Name": "foo-migration",
                        "Driver": "docker",
                        "User": "",
                        "Config": {
                            "args": [
                                "exec",
                                "rails",
                                "db:migrate",
                                "db:seed"
                            ],
                            "command": "bundle",
                            "image": "<scrubbed-image>"
                        },
                        "Constraints": null,
                        "Env": {},
                        "Services": null,
                        "Resources": {
                            "CPU": 250,
                            "MemoryMB": 128,
                            "DiskMB": 0,
                            "IOPS": 0,
                            "Networks": null
                        },
                        "Meta": null,
                        "KillTimeout": 5000000000,
                        "LogConfig": {
                            "MaxFiles": 10,
                            "MaxFileSizeMB": 10
                        },
                        "Artifacts": null,
                        "Vault": null,
                        "Templates": null
                    }
                ],
                "RestartPolicy": {
                    "Interval": 0,
                    "Attempts": 1,
                    "Delay": 0,
                    "Mode": "fail"
                },
                "EphemeralDisk": {
                    "Sticky": false,
                    "Migrate": false,
                    "SizeMB": 300
                },
                "Meta": null
            }
        ],
        "Update": {
            "Stagger": 0,
            "MaxParallel": 0
        },
        "Periodic": null,
        "Meta": null,
        "VaultToken": "",
        "Status": "dead",
        "StatusDescription": "",
        "CreateIndex": 3167431,
        "ModifyIndex": 3167459,
        "JobModifyIndex": 3167431
    }
}

[dadgar]

So the behavior was "correct" but very unexpected. Your policy was allowing the job to restart 1 time within a zero interval since it started. So every time it would restart it would be in a new interval and get up to one restart.

PR linked validates that there is a sane minimum interval.

[BSick7]

@dadgar Does this mean that a job can restart in mode=fail?
Is it safe to assume the way to get my original intention of single failure is to set interval to an extremely high duration to prevent restarts?

[dadgar]

@BSick7 Exactly. So if you had an interval of 5 minutes, mode "fail" and retry count of 3, the task could restart up to 3 times within 5 minutes before we fail it. If you set the interval to something extremely large, it will effectively be the max restarts forever.

[github-actions]

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