From: mleech@bnr.ca (Marcus Leech)
Subject:  LINUX, Unix, and opportunity for change
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Information Techology Division
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:45:05 GMT

Unix provides an extremely rich programming environment, but it has
  traditionally been weak in the areas of system management and
  administration. With LINUX, comes an opportunity to address many of these
  issues. We have an opportunity to build a robust, manageable system, with
  true "Industrial Strength".

I've been a Unix system programmer and manager and support person for nearly
  14 years. I'd like to review some of the areas that I think need attention, 
  and solicit comments [no flames, please, let's maintain our objectivity].

Parameterization of system modules, including the kernel and critical
  system processes.  It is desirable to have a highly parameterized kernel
  with as many of the system parameters tunable dynamically as possible.
  There needs to be a consisent mechanism for specifying and tuning
  system parameters; anyone who's used SYSGEN on VMS knows what I'm
  talking about. The ability to dynamically load device drivers [LINUX
  may already have this--I'm not yet a LINUX system manager].  Along with
  parameterization, theres a *strong* (IMHO) need for *instrumentation*--
  a system manager needs to know what's going on in the system, its
  peripherals, and its user processes. Too often, writers of device drivers
  ignore instrumentation, even though it's cheap and highly useful. I'd like
  to (for example) be able to do the Unix equivalent of the [VMS] SHO DEV/FILES
  command.  Instrumentation should be considered at least as important as
  functionality and performance.

There needs to be a consistent and flexible accounting mechanism. Such a
  mechanism is crucial to tracking security problems, finding out the
  gory details of why a cron job failed at 03:00 last Thursday, etc, etc.
  For those who want to charge for computing services (eeek!), good
  accounting is vital to business objectives.  The current Unix accounting
  mechanism is not very flexible, lacks certain details, and lacks good
  tools for dealing with system accounting records.  It's also rather 
  more expensive to run than it should be.

More of the system should use the syslog() mechanisms, and there should be
  standards for use of this mechanism.  When the system crashes, or a
  peripheral runs into trouble, I want the details recorded by the
  system as it's happening.  Look at the VMS OPLOG and ERRORLOG facilities
  for a flavour of what I mean.  /etc/dmesg simply doesn't cut it.

The notion of allocation of peripheral devices to specific sessions is
  important when you're running a large timesharing system [with the
  advent of cheap 486/50MHZ systems, people *will* do this with LINUX and
  other systems].  When I'm making a load of tapes, I don't want someone
  else to be able to grab the tape drive between tapes.  On a large
  system, this is vital.  Unix totally lacks the notion of "allocation"
  of objects, which I think is a big gap in functionality.  With LINUX,
  we still have the opportunity to address this issue. A coupla changes to
  the proc table, and a couple of systems calls, and voila--allocation.

So, is anybody *else* interested in this stuff, or am I preaching to an
  empty church?

I'd like to make it clear that I'm as rabid a Unix fanatic as the next guy,
  but I have the wisdom to see where other OSes have done some things
  better. If you flame me because you think I'm a VMS weenie, I'll
  not reply.

-- 
Marcus Leech, 4Y11             Bell-Northern Research  |opinions expressed
mleech@bnr.ca                  P.O. Box 3511, Stn. C   |are my own, and not
ml@ve3mdl.ampr.org             Ottawa, ON, CAN K1Y 4H7 |necessarily BNRs
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux