Re: [9fans] secstore

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 10:14:03AM -0400, presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
>
> You should hack consolefs if you want a real IRC.  consolefs doesn't
> tag what the individual users type with their id.  Also, /dev/null
> isn't quite right.  Consolefs only broadcasts what comes out of the
> console, i.e., the echo of the typed stuff plus output.  You'ld need
> a /dev/echo.  However, if you just hacked consolefs, you could do
> away with that and have a real IRC.
>
I wasn't exactly serious, but the idea makes perfect sense.

> Our console server is in the machine room.  No sense putting it anywhere
> else.
>
Yes, but the console switch needs physical presence and we keep the
door locked.  You must realise that I'm the most competent system
person there :-)

> We just do the reset for our debugging machines.  A power panel that
> we could remotely shut down would be nice too.  When we lose power someone
> has to run in and shut down the machines before the UPS's give up.

We have someone with authority (and keys) living nearby, as power
outages seem to occur over weekends (mostly scheduled, which is where
the airconditioning becomes an issue).  But it will be nicer when we
can remotely switch equipment off and on in the right sequence.

Of course I have a very complicated (read: confused) network of the
most disparate objects in my office in Johannesburg and spend almost
half my life in Cape Town.  So I'm driven, but not too hard, by the
desire to manage that from an arbitrary location.

> Luckily, we only need that on our stand alone machines and the file
> servers.  We also have a mixed environment.  Pretty much everything
> imaginable is controlled by the plan 9 consolefs.  The admins liked
> having secure access to the console server(s).  We have 3 of them now,
> there are a lot of machines back there.  We did have to wire DTR high
> on the consoles to some machines like the Sparcs, because if our console
> server rebooted and DTR went down and up (or is it up and down), the
> Suns also rebooted.

I'm amazed that the last equipment with a soft "stand-by" switch I've
seen is the 3B2.  You'd think the idea would have taken root a long
time ago.  APM looks a lot like it, but I'm not up to date with
technology (I don't think I've ever been and it's getting
progressively more difficult even to keep the front runners in sight).

++L