Re: [9front] Enabling a service

[Shawn Rutledge <lists@ecloud.org>]

And yet, the FQA recommends laptops.  Usually the assumption with a laptop is you can take it on the subway or to the coffee shop and keep working.  That implies that you want to have some relevant files with you.  (So it’s good the default install has a local filesystem.)  Then later you get back to the home/office and maybe want to use a machine with a bigger monitor and more files available, but some work in progress is on the laptop so maybe you want to rcpu to it for a while.  Eventually files get synced up again (manually or automatically).  Maybe at home there is a file server, sure it’s good to have the dumps.  That’s probably how I’d use it as soon as I get to the point of depending on Plan 9 for any particular task, not just trying things.  (It reminds me of learning how to use Linux, 30 years ago.  It was at a similar level of development back then.)

So obviously there’s a tradeoff between 9front being usable by a laptop user today vs. trying to preserve the labs experience, and having to answer the same questions over and over (how do I start a service, why do I have to reboot into a different mode to make that possible).  I won’t ask how to do that; but others will.

As for "half-assed network services", I assume that means security concerns; ok so not enough faith in how secure the services are by default (well that ought to be fixable eventually?), and not enough faith in users not to realize that they should try experiments on a local LAN before connecting the services to the Internet (which usually involves some router work anyway, assuming the machine is behind one)?  People who take excessive risks are mainly risking their own files; they should know better, but they probably aren’t going to have a lot of files on Plan 9 anyway.  What’s the worst risk besides data theft?  A mail server getting used as a spam relay or something like that?  I agree that setting up a mail server should be more effort.

> 9p vs latency is a losing battle. trying to run a diskless terminal
> over the internet really, REALLY sucks. even drawterm is not great
> in this context.

I left a 9front machine running on my LAN in Norway while I’m in Phoenix for a while, and set up a wireguard vpn on the openwrt router in Norway so that I can connect to home.  Latency in Phoenix is worse than normal (Verizon wireless internet: it's only meant to be temporary).  Despite that, the performance I see connecting with rcpu or drawterm halfway around the world is comparable to connecting to Linux over VNC: not bad for an experiment (as long as wifi on 9front is not in the path!  ;-)  I don’t expect to play video over that link.  But I also have qualms about letting the router connect 9p over the Internet to that Plan 9 machine, since I don’t know yet all the varieties of half-assedness to expect by default.  I think I have to try the Plan 9 network forwarding at some point though, see if the claim that it’s as good as a VPN really holds up.  But I have to learn enough about security before even trying, it seems.