I’m engaging with the community to share an experience and seek insights regarding ScyllaDB’s handling of specific Cassandra’s tombstone compaction option, particularly unchecked_tombstone_compaction.
While integrating ScyllaDB with a Cassandra-designed plugin, I encountered an issue where the unchecked_tombstone_compaction option was not recognized during a table auto-creation process. This lack of recognition caused the process to fail, despite ScyllaDB’s compatibility with many other tombstone compaction options.
Notably, this tombstone compaction is hardcoded in the plugin, which complicates the issue further. To bypass this, I managed a workaround by manually creating the necessary tables without this specific option. While this approach allows me to move forward, it fundamentally deviates from the automated workflow that the plugin is designed to facilitate. This manual intervention not only introduces additional steps but also increases the potential for errors and inconsistencies, impacting the overall efficiency and reliability of the system setup.
Why is unchecked_tombstone_compaction specifically not supported or recognized among the other tombstone compaction options that ScyllaDB does accept from Cassandra configurations? Is there a technical limitation or rationale behind this selective recognition?
If I understand correctly, this unchecked_tombstone_compaction is a way to bypass tombstone_threshold, starting tombstone compaction based on tombstone_compaction_interval alone.
I don’t think there is any technical or product level consideration for us not implementing this (at least not that I’m aware of). Most minor compatibility features like this are developed on-demand and most likely nobody asked for this feature yet.
If you would like this feature to be implemented, please try to find an existing issue about this on the ScyllaDB issue tracker and comment on it that it is interesting to you as well, or create a new one if it doesn’t exist.
It’s reassuring to know that the absence of this feature isn’t due to any technical limitations.
I came across a closed issue mentioning unchecked_tombstone_compaction , and it left unclear why this option isn’t supported despite indications to the contrary. For additional context, you can review that discussion here:
To provide further clarity and directly engage with this topic, I’d like to share the issue I initiated:
Looks like we either forgot about unchecked_tombstone_compaction or didn’t think it is important when doing our initial implementation of tombstone compaction. I found nothing in that tissue suggesting that we made a deliberate decision for not implementing this.
Thank you for this clarification. It’s interesting to hear that unchecked_tombstone_compaction might have just slipped through the cracks or wasn’t seen as essential initially.
Thank you once again for taking the time to look into this matter and for your ongoing support.