Re: Sysadmins

[Michal Suchanek]

On 11/6/05, Emmanuel Colbus <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Message du 05/11/05 17:46
> > De : "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <address@hidden>
> > A : address@hidden
> > Copie à : address@hidden, address@hidden
> > Objet : Re: Sysadmins
> >
> > On Sat, 2005-11-05 at 11:49 +0100, Emmanuel Colbus wrote:
> > > In the main
> > > areas, policy isn't that strong, and the total amount of disk
> > > space is far lower than the sum of all quotas...
> > >
> > > Therefore, it's also the administrator's business to ensure users
> > > aren't wasting their space for nothing...
> >
> > The first statement is true, and it follows necessarily from the
> > mathematics of resource management.
> >
> > The second statement does not follow from the first. Here are two
> > alternatives:
>
> There is a misunderstanding here.
>
> I think I need to remind you of the context of my sentences in this thread.
> I was arguing against an architecture who would have *required* that users
> installed all their own software, or trust some other users, in order to need
> fewer interventions from the admin.
>
> Therefore, I argued that it was the business of the admin to ensure users
> didn't had to do such things - that is, not choosing a system who would have
> required such operations.
>
> Anyway, we can discuss this particular issue too :
>
> >
> >   1. It is the system administrator's duty to monitor *usage* (as
> >      opposed to content) and determine whose usage needs to be
> >      curtailed. Any subsequent negotiation about whether the content
> >      is valuable can be undertaken between the humans without requiring
> >      architectural support for spying.
>
> Yes, that's the good idea, I think. But, as I stated in
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/l4-hurd/2005-11/msg00060.html ,
> it sometimes doesn't works that easy.
>
> >
> >   2. Alternatively, it is the system administrator's duty to buy
> >      more disk.
> >
> > The second point deserves more thought than we usually give it: in many
> > cases, the cost of a new disk drive is substantially less than the cost
> > of the employee-time to throw things away.
>
> Yes, if he administrates a PC which has enough space to get a new disk, and
> enough hardware to archive its data, and not too much other requirements.
>
> But if it comes to a great computer, I don't think it's a valuable approach.

What is a great computer? If it is a *large* computer it has lots of
space for adding disks. Plus you can add additional external boxes.
And more controllers if there are too few connectors to connect more
boxes.

>
> Additionnaly, adding disks is a strategy which has limits; and current
> system design doesn't make that easy to do at all : for example, if accounts

Current system design, that's it.
Enlarging a volume with a filesystem should not be that difficult (and
it is already possible, just not as easy as one would wish), enlarging
the space available for system state snapshots should be even easier.

> are stored on the same partition, splitting them can be difficult (problems
> include eg. hard links, user scripts (because their $HOME would change),
> some administration scripts, etc...).

Thanks

Michal

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