Containing a faulty stimulus in a content delivery network

1. A computer-implemented method for containing a faulty stimulus, the method comprising:

adding to a suspect list every stimulus in a received plurality of stimuli including non-faulty stimuli and the faulty stimulus;

implicitly testing the stimuli by respectively acting upon those stimuli by a software application;

responsive to successfully acting upon each of the non-faulty stimuli by the software application:

deleting that non-faulty stimulus from the suspect list; and

responsive to the deleting, making that non-faulty stimulus available to a downstream node; and

responsive to a crash of the software application caused by acting upon the faulty stimulus:

restarting the software application subsequent to the crashing; and

deeming the faulty stimulus as being faulty based upon it still being listed in the suspect list after the restarting.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising reporting the deemed faulty stimulus to an upstream computer.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer makes the faulty stimulus unavailable to the downstream node based upon the faulty stimulus being deemed faulty.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the crash also leaves a non-faulty stimulus listed in the suspect list, and wherein that non-faulty stimulus is deemed as being faulty based upon it still being in listed in the suspect list after the restarting.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein stimuli of the plurality of stimuli independently include commands for the downstream node to take an action or to change configuration.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the storage device comprises a mass storage device.

7. A computer system comprising a processor, a storage device, and a network interface, the processor being configured to implement operations comprising:

adding to a suspect list stored in the storage device, by the processor, every stimulus in a received plurality of stimuli including non-faulty stimuli and the faulty stimulus;

implicitly testing, by a software application running on the processor, the stimuli by respectively acting upon those stimuli;

responsive to successfully acting upon each of the non-faulty stimuli:

deleting, by the processor, that non-faulty stimulus from the suspect list; and

responsive to the deleting, making available, by the processor via the network interface, that non-faulty stimulus to a downstream node; and

responsive to a crash of the software application caused by acting upon the faulty stimulus:

restarting the software application subsequent to the crashing; and

deeming, by the processor, the faulty stimulus as being faulty based upon it still being listed in the suspect list after the restarting.

8. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein the processor further is configured to report the deemed faulty stimulus to an upstream computer.

9. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein the processor further is configured to make the faulty stimulus unavailable to the downstream node based upon the faulty stimulus being deemed faulty.

10. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein the crashing also leaves a non-faulty stimulus listed in the suspect list, and wherein the processor further is configured to deem that non-faulty stimulus as being faulty based upon it still being in listed in the suspect list after the restarting.

11. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein stimuli of the plurality of stimuli independently include commands for a downstream node to take an action or to change configuration.

12. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein the storage device comprises a mass storage device.

13. A computer-implemented method for containing a faulty stimulus, the method comprising:

implicitly testing a received plurality of stimuli, including non-faulty stimuli and the faulty stimulus, by respectively acting upon those stimuli by a software application;

responsive to successfully acting upon the non-faulty stimuli, making those non-faulty stimuli available to a plurality of downstream nodes; and

responsive to a crash of the software application caused by acting upon the faulty stimulus, making the faulty stimulus unavailable to the plurality of downstream nodes.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein each of the downstream nodes also is configured to implement the method.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein at least one of the downstream nodes has a different software application version than does the computer.

16. A computer system comprising a processor and a network interface, the processor being configured to implement operations comprising:

implicitly testing, by the processor, a received plurality of stimuli, including non-faulty stimuli and the faulty stimuli, by respectively acting upon the stimuli by a software application;

responsive to successfully acting upon the non-faulty stimuli, making available, by the processor via the network interface, those stimuli to the plurality of downstream nodes; and

responsive to a crash of the software application caused by acting upon the faulty stimulus, making the faulty stimulus unavailable to the plurality of downstream nodes.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein each of the downstream nodes also is configured to implement the operations.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein at least one of the downstream nodes uses a different software application version than does the processor.