HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au (Bernd Felsche)
Subject: Re: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Organization: MetaPro Systems, Perth, Western Australia
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 01:53:08 GMT

In <5453@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane) writes:

>Against my better wishes I have to implement a `project' based accounting
>system on top of the standard AT&T Unix process accounting.  Projects are
>represented by arbitary eight character text strings (which could be mapped
>to small integers in the implementation) and each process that executes has
>to be associated with one such string.  Projects can have one or more users
>and each user can be a member of one or more projects (but only one project
>at a time.) Users have to be able to change projects at any point with a
>command and all subsequent processes executed in the same login session
>have to be associated with the new project. 

>I don't really want to modify the Unix kernel unless it is absolutely
>necessary.

It appears that all that is necessary is for you to write
new (additional) analysis programs for the collected data
(pacct* files), and to record the date-time when each user
switches projects, via a short set[ug]id program.

Users can then switch between project within the same login
session, simply by executing the project-switch command.

The structure of the pacct files is well documented and it
looks easy enough to do a project-by-project analysis by
correlating the user-project switch times with process
accounting information. You can poke your project reporting
stuff into the existing scripts which initiate periodic
process accounting; daily/monthly/annually.

I'll leave the options/extensions up to you as an exercise. :-)
-- 
+-----+ Bernd Felsche                     _--_|\  #include <std/disclaimer.h>
| | | | MetaPro Systems Pty Ltd          /      \ bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au
| | | | 328 Albany Highway,              X_.--._/         Fax: +61 9 472 3337
|m|p|s| Victoria Park, Western Australia 6100  v        Phone: +61 9 362 9355
From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
Subject: Re: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Date: 30 Jul 92 08:33:37 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, England, M13 9PL.

In article <Bs6205.22L@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> lindsay@watnow.waterloo.edu (Lindsay Patten) writes:
>Can you not just record the time and project name when they change
>projects and then go through the process accounting assigning the
>cost of the process to the project then in effect?
>Lindsay Patten


The information stored in the accounting records for UTS (which is the
system I have to deal with) does not allow unambiguious mapping of the
project information to user processes.  UTS Unix allows multiple concurrent
logins to the same userid and the controlling tty field (the obvious first
thing to use to distinguish the logins) is not aways maintained correctly
(XDM logins, for instance, need not, and on UTS, do not, update the utmp or
wtmp files. There are other sources of user processes, such as batch work
run under NQS, where there is no controlling tty at all.) 


 

-- 
Geoff. Lane.                                  Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin, Manchester Computing Centre, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL
From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
Subject: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Date: 28 Jul 92 10:24:20 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, England, M13 9PL.

Against my better wishes I have to implement a `project' based accounting
system on top of the standard AT&T Unix process accounting.  Projects are
represented by arbitary eight character text strings (which could be mapped
to small integers in the implementation) and each process that executes has
to be associated with one such string.  Projects can have one or more users
and each user can be a member of one or more projects (but only one project
at a time.) Users have to be able to change projects at any point with a
command and all subsequent processes executed in the same login session
have to be associated with the new project. 

I don't really want to modify the Unix kernel unless it is absolutely
necessary.

So far the best idea anyone has suggested is using the Unix groups as
projects but I dislike using groups for two disjoint purposes (the project
structure would impose restrictions on how users could share files is one
obvious problem.) 

Has anyone had to do something similar and is willing to share their
experiences?
-- 
Geoff. Lane.                                  Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin, Manchester Computing Centre, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
From: mbl900@huxley.anu.edu.au (Mathew BM LIM)
Subject: Re: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 31 Jul 92 03:08:19 GMT

lamy@sobeco.com (Jean-Francois Lamy) writes:

>In any case, I strongly feel this is something best done in the kernel, and
>provided by the vendor.  Kudos to Control Data for at least recognising the
>need...

Yes I must agree that this is best done in the kernel, however, it can still
be done effectively at the user level in certain environments.
We currently run a locally developed package to do project based accounting
and CPU quota.

The technique we use is to "wrap" the users login shell, batch job, etc. 
with another process which handles the accounting and quota stuff.
This system works well for us, we've been running this for about a year now 
on a SYSV4 machine and it's now quite stable and usable. But it's success is
probably largely because we have co-operative users. There are just too many
ways for a semi-determined user to circumvent such a system.

In short, user level accounting of this sort can be done, but the integrity
of the data cannot be guaranteed unless your users co-operate, or you have
a big enough stick to deter any would be offenders.

I have heard of several commercial packages which claim to be able to do
project based accounting. The one I know most about is SHARE II from
Softway, an Australian company. I believe that SHARE II is 
liscensed to Convex and Cray and form part of their operating system.

The other 2 packages I have only read short passages about is AIM Job
Accounting and UniSol JobACCT. I have phone numbers for these if anyone
wants them.


Mathew Lim, Unix Systems Programmer, ANU Supercomputer Facility,        
Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra City, ACT, Australia 2601.
Telephone : +61 6 249 2750      | 
Fax       : +61 6 247 3425      | E-Mail  : M.Lim@anu.edu.au

Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
From: lindsay@watnow.waterloo.edu (Lindsay Patten)
Subject: Re: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 19:55:16 GMT

Can you not just record the time and project name when they change
projects and then go through the process accounting assigning the
cost of the process to the project then in effect?
-- 
Lindsay Patten
Pattern Analysis & Machine Intelligence Group         lindsay@pami.waterloo.edu
Dept. of Systems Design Engineering  {utai|decvax|uunet}!watmath!watnow!lindsay
University of Waterloo                   Neither I nor PAMI speak for the other
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
From: mike@snowhite.EEAP.CWRU.Edu (Michael C. Sidman)
Subject: Re: large site writeups
Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, CWRU, Cleve. OH
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 17:32:06 GMT

In article <vanepp.711329747@sfu.ca> vanepp@fraser.sfu.ca (Peter Van Epp) writes:
>At fraser.sfu.ca in /pub/ucspapers/RPIPpaper.ps.Z you will find one such
>paper.

Just as a slight update, the file name seems to be RPIPaper92.ps.Z (~170 KB)

Regards,

Michael



-- 
Michael C. Sidman                               | mike@snowhite.eeap.cwru.edu 
Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics      |____________________________
Case Western Reserve University                 | "Cleveland - it's not hell, 
Cleveland, Ohio 44106                           | but a damn good simulation."
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
From: vanepp@fraser.sfu.ca (Peter Van Epp)
Subject: Re: large site writeups
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 00:46:34 GMT

mike@snowhite.EEAP.CWRU.Edu (Michael C. Sidman) writes:

>Just as a slight update, the file name seems to be RPIPaper92.ps.Z (~170 KB)

Yep, I screwed up (someone pointed it out by mail but I didn't think there 
was that much interest), to make this not a total waste of bandwidth, I'll
point out that the paper is some 54 pages long when printed (so you may want
to find a PostScript previewer somewhere).

Peter Van Epp / Operations and Technical Support 
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
From: Sm@cerberus.bhpese.oz.au (Scott Merrilees)
Subject: Re: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Organization: BHP, Newcastle, Australia
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 02:29:41 GMT

lindsay@watnow.waterloo.edu (Lindsay Patten) writes:
>Can you not just record the time and project name when they change
>projects and then go through the process accounting assigning the
>cost of the process to the project then in effect?

How do you then generally distinguish between one user running multiple
sessions at the same time detached from a tty?  On the same tty?
Seems like you need some way of associating parent and child processes.

The easiest way may be use utilise unused bits in the ac_flag field of the
accounting record.  You may need to write a syscall to do this, and you may
also need to revector the fork() system call to be able to propogate this
information to subprocesses.

Looking at risc/os, there doesn't seem to be many spare bits in ac_flag.
Maybe exit can be revectored and extra info written somewhere ? Off course,
storing this extra info before exit should also be interesting.

Also, how do you charge for the parent shell ? time based split, exec on
new project ?
-- 
Scott Merrilees, BHP Information Technology, Newcastle, Australia
Internet: Sm@bhpese.oz.au   Phone: +61 49 40 2132   Fax: ... 2165
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
From: lamy@sobeco.com (Jean-Francois Lamy)
Subject: Re: Can project based accounting be done on Unix?
Organization: Sobeco Ernst & Young
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 02:10:54 GMT

Control Data has both project accounting and job accounting in EP/IX.  I am
awaiting copies of their software for evaluation.  They seem to have used some
kernel assistance, and generate additional files beyond standard pacct.

Since we don't have source, what has been done here is to have a command
called setacct that writes a record to the ptmp file that contains the user
name, tty and account name (project name in your case).  Noting the tty allows
a program reading the ptmp file to tally related accounting records until the
same tty becomes used by another user or another account is used.  This gives
a sort-of-kind-of combination between job-based and project based accounting
for cpu time.

For files, faced with similar concerns about not mixing up access rights
(groups) with accounting (project names/account names), we ended up charging
file names based on their naming.  I.e. my home directory is /u/_rec07/j.lamy
and is charged to account rec07; if I create a subdirectory called _blah the
spaced used under blah would be charged to account blah (assuming  i have
the right to bill to that account; the leftmost authorised account is used).

Neither of these techniques require kernel hacks.  Using ttys for identifying
sessions is crude; it has forced us to hack our batch system to run batch jobs
under a controlling tty (gah).  The technique has been tested on MIPS RISC/os
4.x and AIX.

In any case, I strongly feel this is something best done in the kernel, and
provided by the vendor.  Kudos to Control Data for at least recognising the
need...

Jean-Francois Lamy                                        |   lamy@sobeco.com
Computer Networks and Systems				  |   lamy@sobeco.ca
Sobeco Ernst & Young, Montreal, Canada H2Z 1Y7            |   uunet!sobeco!lamy
Xref: sparky comp.unix.admin:4393 comp.unix.ultrix:5985
From: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Help needed - coordinating different forms in a printer
Date: 31 Jul 92 01:46:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Jul31.014633.9192
Followup-To: comp.unix.admin
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR

We've got a UNIX problem for which we need a solution. I figured that
someone out on the net has run into this one before, so I'd ask here
first.

Our business office has one printer, and they have 20 or so different
forms that they load into the printer to print things out to. They
need the print spoler to coordinate which forms are loaded into the
printer when, and how to make sure that everyone's jobs eventually
land on the right paper.

This is being done under Ultrix 4.2 (basically BSD). I've thought of a
couple of gross solutions - having 20 different names for the same
printer with different paper (and turn most of them off), for
instance.

Does anyone have a clean way to accomplish this? Thanks.
-- 
                __
nelson@reed.edu \/                              Support modern family values!
From: hinkle@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Steven J. Hinkle)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: allowing users root access to specific commands
Date: 24 Jul 92 20:03:30 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci
Originator: hinkle@electra.cs.buffalo.edu


In article <1992Jul24.130911.6009@dragon.acadiau.ca>, alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan McKay) writes:
> Does anyone know of a way I can give root access to specific users for
> specific commands?  A while ago I pulled a program from the net which
> did this, but I seem to have lost the program before installing it.

   We use a program called 'sudo'.  It is available via anonymous ftp from 
boulder.colorado.edu in /pub/sa-book/sudo

   In a file (/usr/local/adm/sudoers) you can specify a username, the commands
that username can execute as root and a path that it has as root.

   Works great.

Steven Hinkle
Xref: sparky comp.unix.admin:4327 comp.unix.misc:3019
From: jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: Need Good (Small, Free) database for Unix
Date: 26 Jul 92 17:03:24 GMT
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Austin, Republic of Texas

In article <1992Jul21.190249.14741@dragon.acadiau.ca> alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan McKay) writes:
>Is there a nice little PD/Shareware database available for Unix
>that would be well-suited to these little tasks?  I was told to
>look specifically for something "PICK based", but I don't really
>have the slightest clue what that means.

Look for "IDBM" in an alt.sources archive near you.  I've not posted
it to comp.sources.misc yet because it isn't done yet.  But the code
is currently being used by a number of very large companies (including
one with only three letters in its name) for small database applications.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                   | Vida en La Republica de Tejas:
Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151            |  A Tejana woman, after spending the rent
UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh |  money on the Tejas Lottery - "I can't go
Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org      |  home, my husband will beat me up."
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: pirzyk@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (Jim Pirzyk)
Subject: Changing priority on root's shell
Summary: Is it okay to renice a root shell
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:00:12 GMT
Keywords: renice root shell

Is there a problem with renice'ing a root shell.  I wanted to up the 
priority on the shell so when the system cralls to a stop, I can determine
what is causing it (as root).  Any opinions on this would be apreciated.

- Jim
-- 
[Jim] pirzyk@uiuc.edu -------------------------------------------
UNIX System Administrator
Nothing is "broke", it is only a new "feature".
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.misc
From: alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan McKay)
Subject: Need Good (Small, Free) database for Unix
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 19:02:49 GMT

We currently have Oracle running on both our Sun 670MP and our
MIPS box.  On both systems it is used for massive things like the
library system and administration data.  However, our users don't
seem to find Oracle very well suited for those little conveniences
that would make life easier but arn't really necessary.  For example
our head operator wants to keep a record of downtime in a database.
She has all sorts of little things that she wants to tag on to each
record depending upon why the system was down that particular time,
so the standard "csh/awk/grep poor-person's database" won't work.

Is there a nice little PD/Shareware database available for Unix
that would be well-suited to these little tasks?  I was told to
look specifically for something "PICK based", but I don't really
have the slightest clue what that means.

Something I think would be useful is a database that you can 
interface with shell scripts.  Like with AREXX on the Amiga.
Is that asking too much?

-- 
--
Alan W. McKay		| (902)542-2201.158	| Wolfville, N.S. Canada
alan@acadiau.ca		| Acadia University	| SUB Box 6008, B0P 1Z1
----------------------------------------- My Canada includes Quebec -----
From: brendan@cs.widener.edu (Brendan Kehoe)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Obscure Problem #57
Date: 29 Jul 1992 18:47:30 GMT
Organization: Widener University Computer Science Dept, Chester PA
Distribution: world
Reply-To: brendan@cs.widener.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: betty.cs.widener.edu


I kept getting empty mail from a user to the address "News"; after the
third time, I finally asked him why.  He said he never sent mail to me.

It turns out amidst other typos, he'd typed "*" by itself
occasionally; the wildcard matched to `Mail News' (two subdirectories,
the only two things in his home directory).  He'd been using ^D to get
out of it.

Man.  Another one for the scrap book.

--
Brendan Kehoe, Sun Network Manager                      brendan@cs.widener.edu
Widener University                                                 Chester, PA
 "But Billy! A *small* allowance prepares you for a lifetime of small salaries
  and for your Social Security payments."                     -- Family Circus
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
From: ehwd@sherman.pas.rochester.edu (Eric Howard)
Subject: files in /etc
Organization: University of Rochester
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 21:07:56 GMT

Hi, 

I'm not sure if this is the right place to send this, but
it looks appropriate.

I'm one of the admins for our local network of sun 
computers. One of our users (who's machine is cliented,
but not diskless) wants to know which of the files in
his root partition must be kept as machine specific. 
(ie, he wants to know which ones can be replaced with
links from a partition that is mounted on another 
machine.) I told him the ones that I knew, but I don't
know what all of them do. Can anyone out there provide 
me with a list of the files that could be replaced by 
links (ie. are not machine specific)?

Thanks in advance. My email address is:
ehwd@sherman.pas.rochester.edu but I will be reading this
group for a while to see if responses are posted here.

eric
From: mjo@ef2007.efhd.ford.com (Mike O'Connor)
Subject: Re: whereis tcsh-6.02 ?
X-Disclaimer: Not an official spokesperson for Ford OPEO
Reply-To: Mike O'Connor <mjo@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com>
Organization: International Affairs, Overseas Engineering, "Fordz"
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 18:27:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.172158.25977@dragon.acadiau.ca> alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan McKay) writes:
:I've heard rumors of a tcsh-6.02.  We are currently using 6.00.03
:and would like to upgrade.  I looked in archie but couldn't find
:anything that specifically said 6.02 on it, and the list was too
:long to just go looking.
:
:Could someone please tell me where to get it?

tcsh 6.02 is available for anonymous FTP from:

tesla.ee.cornell.edu:/pub/tcsh/

-- 
 Michael J. O'Connor           |  Internet:  mjo@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com
 Ford Motor Company, OPEO      |  UUCP:      ...!{backbone}!fmsrl7!mjo
 20000 Rotunda, Bldg. 1-3001   |  Phone:     +1 (313) 248-1260
 Dearborn, MI  48121           |  Fax:       +1 (313) 323-6277
From: trost@romulus.reed.edu (Bill Trost)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Help Needed: How to send mail to "everybody" at once
Date: 22 Jul 92 06:33:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: romulus.TROST.92Jul21233312
Organization: Reed College

In article <1992Jul17.140319.23953@sdc.com> kenk@sdc.com (Ken Konecki) writes:
   In article <1992Jul16.224234.13551@cco.caltech.edu> jafl@cco.caltech.edu (John Lindal) writes:
   >Does anyone know how to send mail to everyone on a particular system
   >without having to specify all the user names?

   mail `awk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd`

   ...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this:

On a system with 2000 users (yes, I have a particular one in mind  :-) ),
you will create deadly havoc with the machine if you try to send mail to
everyone.  Consider:

  * If your mail message small -- say, 1K, sending this message will
    consume two megabytes on your spool disk.  If you fill the spool disk,
    you essentially kill mail on the machine.

  * Given that you can't send mail to everyone at once (too many command
    line arguments), the next obvious approach is to send mail to each
    user personally.  Now, since all a program like mail does is pass the
    message of to sendmail, and sendmail runs as root (who is allowed an
    arbitrary number of processes), you suddenly create a sitation where
    the machine is trying to deliver hundreds of mail messages
    *simultaneously*.  This, more likely than not, will eventually crash
    the machine, and then the system administrator gets to play clean-up.

Conclusion?  Post news, or modify /etc/motd, or something -- but don't
send everyone mail.  You're bound to lose bad if you try.
--
Bill Trost <trost@reed.edu>   There are two types of people: those who divide
Reed College Systems Manager  people into two types, and those who don't.
From: milt@lax.pe-nelson.com (Milt Ratcliff)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Phone number for Uunet
Keywords: UUNET
Date: 25 Jul 92 20:32:04 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: PE-Nelson


|Mail to info@uunet.uu.net.  

Also...

UUNET Communications Services
3110 Fairview Park Drive
Suite 570
Falls Church
VA   22042-4239

Voice:                     703.204.8000
Fax:                       703.204.8001
Fax for Accounting only:   703.204.8002

General Information:       800.488.6384
Customer Support:          800.488.6386
AlterNet:                  800.488.6383
Telebit Modem Sales:       800.488.6385
-- 
Milt Ratcliff                                            milt@PE-Nelson.COM
PE-Nelson                                                +1.408.725.1107
10040 Bubb Road
Cupertino, CA  95014