Re: Sysadmins

[Emmanuel Colbus]

> 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.

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
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...).

Emmanuel