wfd00828@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (03/01/90)
I have a question that may or may not be stupid or relevent; at the moment, its just something thats rolling around in the back of my mind. How "crash-proof" is, say, SCO Xenix, or Unix, or whatever? How about someone else's? What I'm (potentially) looking for is an OS that will allow a '386 machine to support, say, five users (terminals?), none of whom know more about computers than being a casual MS-DOS (or maybe just TRS-DOS) user, including someone acting as site manager. Any suggestions? Apologies if this group is inappropriate. I don't read this grope, err, group regularly, but if you're interested in responses, drop me a line; I'll send you a copy. Many Thanks. Please email to: w-dexter@uiuc.edu Walt Dexter University of Illinois
scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) (03/02/90)
In article <48500002@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> wfd00828@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >How "crash-proof" is, say, SCO Xenix, or Unix, or whatever? How about >someone else's? What I'm (potentially) looking for is an OS that will allow >a '386 machine to support, say, five users (terminals?), none of whom know >more about computers than being a casual MS-DOS (or maybe just TRS-DOS) >user, including someone acting as site manager. Any suggestions? Just make sure you have an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) attached to the machine and you'll be fine. It is unlikely that a naive user will inadvertantly crash the machine. -- Scott Amspoker Basis International, Albuquerque, NM (505) 345-5232 unmvax.cs.unm.edu!bbx!bbxsda!scott
gordon@sneaky.UUCP (Gordon Burditt) (03/09/90)
>Just make sure you have an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) attached >to the machine and you'll be fine. It is unlikely that a naive >user will inadvertantly crash the machine. This, unfortunately isn't true. If naive users have access to the console, you probably need to replace the reset switch with a key-operated switch. Keep the key where it takes at least 30 seconds to reach it. Users used to MS-DOS tend to use RESET often, and it's usually inappropriate on a multi-user machine. I've seen this problem happen even on machines that won't run MS-DOS. We couldn't keep these people out of the machine room because they had legitimate reason to use other machines in the room, and in most cases they could use the machine that got reset. They weren't being malicious nor are they stupid - they just didn't know. A naive system administrator can probably function fairly well with two specialized logins (using the root uid, 0) for shutdown and backup. Use a shell script as the shell specified in the password file for each login, and have logging in activate a shutdown or making a backup. It might be reasonable to give out the password to the shutdown login to most users (or even non-users!) with physical access to the console, so when you get notified that the power is going off in 10 minutes, or at the end of the day if you don't want the system running overnight, someone there can shut down the system in an orderly manner. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon