> Message du 05/11/05 17:46
> De : "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> A : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Copie à : [email protected], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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
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