Re: [9front] Enabling a service

[sl@stanleylieber.com]

plan 9's design is for the disk file server to live in a locked room,
with everyone else reyling upon it as the single source of truth.  the
idea was that the installation should marshal the resources of
whatever organization hosted it to move as much of the burden of
administration away from the end user as possible, placing it on the
shoulders of the "technical staff." rob's stated dream was for
computing to be a resource you extract from a wall socket, like
electricity.  the system is an octopus radiating out from the file
server.  it can afford to lose limbs, but not it's brain.  this
confers outsize benefits on hapless users who just want their computer
to work.  you will read stories of people at the labs just carrying
around a floppy disk (or equivalent) with which to boot random
computers into plan 9.  start up the machine, and all your stuff is
there, ready to go.  meanwhile, the file server originally ran a
completely separate operating system, and mere users were not allowed
anywhere near it's console.

not much has ever been done to address these original assumptions,
that the disk file server is locked up in a room, and that you're not
allowed to diddle with it, so stuff gets brittle when you violate the
system's fragile self-image.  for example, stand alone systems, with
their local disks, can muster little self-defense against crashing
programs, malicious intruders getting access to the local disk file
server via bugs in their crashing programs, etc.  conversely, being
hostowner on a diskless terminal is worth exactly whatever files that
user has access to on the remote file server, and whatever
capabilities are active within the scope of that compromise.

i realize it's factually true that "nobody' runs diskless terminals,
cpu servers, etc., but it makes plan 9 power users whince to see this
declared, over and over again, when a lot of the power of the system
comes from this very useful modularity that everyone just wants to
throw away.

the 9front installer used to set $service, but everyone wants
something different from their system, even while declaring their
choices are obvious and correct.  after a while we realized it was
useless trying to read the user's mind.  there are just too many ways
to configure and use the system.  in the end, setting these things up
is just not that onerous.  if you need to be service=cpu, you should
be able to figure out how to set it up.  if you can't, you may not be
ready to offer services to a network.

this isn't intended to be snarky.  the whole system is intentionally
simple and modular enough to make understanding how it works part of
the process of using it.

you have to start somewhere.

sl