Today, I sent out an email to all CIS students stating that it is the policy of the systems staff to disable accounts for users that reboot computers. An anonymous coward then posted to my blog the following comment to the topmost entry at the time. This person wasn't brave enough to give his name. This person was disrespectful and posted on my blog this trollish message rather than trying to consider my position. An email to me stating these concerns would have been adequate to get the answers to these questions. However, being the mature adult I am and since this person obviously knows of my blog, I expect he will find my answer below. The rest of my readers (if there are any :) may go along for the ride.
[The start is copy of the body of the email I sent out. — Sterling]--start snip--
This is a reminder that anyone caught rebooting a CIS computer system will have their CIS account disabled until they are able to meet with me. Many systems have routine maintenance performed upon them remotely and rebooting them during critical moments may cause serious problems. This account policy has been put in place to protect damage to our systems and reduce the work load of the systems staff wasted on rebuilding damaged operating system installations.Bugs in some Linux software, most notably GNOME, may result in a login to a blank screen. If this happens, there are instructions posted in Nichols 126 and Nichols 128 on how to remedy the problem. A reboot is **not** required. By using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace you can kill any failed session, then follow the instructions given in these labs to repair your broken GNOME settings.
-- end snip --Why are you doing this while someone is using the computer? Why not do it while it isn't being used or when there is a minimal amount of use. [sic] Why don't you include a reason in the email as to why you HAVE to do the update while someone is doing something? If you are doing an update, why not lock the computer. [sic] Then you don't have to worry about it.
*quote*Bugs in some Linux software, most notably GNOME, may result in a login to a blank screen.*/quote* Oh really? So you mean that there are thousands of installs across the globe having this problem? Or is it because our linux workstations are configured in such a way to cause as many problems as possible. [sic]
On another note, the linux machines aren't usable anyway. *IF* you can log in you have to use the failsafe logon. And then every application takes forever to load, on top of that, it may not even work half way during your session because of some authentication issue that causes you to ctrl+alt+backspace.
On yet another note, IE didn't prevent me from experiencing a better internet. You did by making your site do whatever it does. Tells me you can't write a website that goes across all browsers.
Now for my answer to each question:
Anonymous: Why are you doing this while someone is using the computer? Why not do it while it isn't being used or when there is a minimal amount of use?
Sterling: Why not? My employees are also students and work during the day while users are using the machines. If such work takes a small percentage of the processor, why not?
Anonymous: Why don't you include a reason in the email as to why you HAVE to do the update while someone is doing something?
Sterling: Typically, including explanations gets me in trouble with trolls, like you. See. In general, I try to explain as little as possible because as long as my policies are mystical, it's hard to complain. At the same time, I have trouble not telling because I think rules without reason are stupid. Perhaps I should have been even less explanatory and I wouldn't be typing this now. Oh well.
As for why we "HAVE" to do the updates while folks are using the labs, the answer is the same: why not? Why do my students have to work weird hours when they can do the work during regular hours. The real fact is that we rarely have to repair damaged computers, but that is the real risk if an update happens to be at a critical point. It's rare. So, we're willing to accept the risk that someone might reboot it. However, such an action will have consequences.
Anonymous: If you are doing an update, why not lock the computer? Then you don't have to worry about it.
Sterling: Fallacious. Locking a computer doesn't prevent users from rebooting them. In fact, the policy was put in place primarily to protect the Windows fleet as we must lock them to do the work. However, users flatly ignore the "Administrator is currently logged." in window on the screen and red button the machine.
Anonymous: Oh really? So you mean that there are thousands of installs across the globe having this problem? Or is it because our linux workstations are configured in such a way to cause as many problems as possible?
Sterling: A bit angry are we? Well, it's a little easier to blame GNOME than it is to accept responsibility myself. However, part of the blame belongs with me. For the past year, we have been dealing with problems with NFS and locking. The issue was that the autonomous configuration agent system we use to help us configure all systems was misconfigured to kill certain NFS client processes. Because of this Linux file locking was frequently broken and GNOME was unable to cope.
Two problems: (1) File locking is a farce on NFS, no such thing really exists, but NFS kind of fakes it. GNOME relies a little too heavily on file locking and since most our users logged into GNOME by default, their settings were eventually corrupted by the fact that file locking was broken and that GNOME didn't handle the error very well. (2) Now that these settings are corrupt, GNOME isn't able to rebuild them without help. The help we give it is to simply wipe the settings clean and start over. Tell the folks who write GNOME to make their software robust enough to recover from bad settings.
Thus, the NFS problems are mine. I accept responsibility for those. However, the rest is certainly GNOME. Unfortunately, the GNOME developers probably haven't faced these kinds of exceptional circumstances before due to a misconfigured NFS environment, so they haven't prepared the software to cope. Does that mean their software is deficient? Yes, but only in a very mild way. I am not blaming the GNOME project for brain damage here. It's more like I'm picking at a few scabs on GNOME's knees.
As for being "configured in the worst way possible," that is such a highly inflammatory and trollish comment as to not even require answering.
Anonymous: On another note, the linux machines aren't usable anyway.
Sterling: I beg your pardon, but my workstation is configured the same as any of the lab workstations. I have it this way because I want to know when something fails. My machine is updated as frequently as the lab machines and has the same software installed. I use mine everyday.
Also, I see enough users using the lab computers on a regular basis that I have a hard time imagining that they are unusable.
Anonymous: *IF* you can log in you have to use the failsafe logon. And then every application takes forever to load, on top of that, it may not even work half way during your session because of some authentication issue that causes you to ctrl+alt+backspace.
Sterling: That's grasping. The blue screens are caused by locking issues or corrupt settings. Authentication issues result in neat little messages under the login box like "The username/password given is incorrect."
Anonymous: On yet another note, IE didn't prevent me from experiencing a better internet. You did by making your site do whatever it does. Tells me you can't write a website that goes across all browsers.
Sterling: Oh man. Someone lauding IE? IE hasn't had a substantive update in over a year. I didn't say that Firefox is the only browser in the world man. I just have a link to it because it's my favorite. Is it against the law to like a browser?
My web site probably does look like a pile dog crap on other browsers, but that's just because I don't care. This is a personal blog after all. My site, my rules. What difference does it make?
In closing, I'd just like to say that you should unwind a bit. Go drink a smoothie or have a beer or go to church or whatever helps you relax. If you want to have a calm discussion sometime, I'd be happy to entertain one that involved mutual respect rather than derision.
Also, we currently have an opening for a Windows administrator, so if you'd like to be part of the team, please put in your resume. Then, if you are as good as you think you are, you'd certainly get the job and could put your money where your mouth is.
Cheers.
apply as an admin??
(... I feel like throwing a little Jar Jar in here ...)
Meesa thinks anybody who has a high enough level of INcompetency to lack the ability to use the same lab image that facilitates my highly productive work experience might fall a little short of what we're looking for in our new admin.
I can see it now on the app: "First Class Troll"
Anyway...
On yet another note, IE didn't prevent me from experiencing a better internet. You did by making your site do whatever it does. Tells me you can't write a website that goes across all browsers.
*chuckle* Let me see if I can put this into words that the poster may understand: "Tells me you can't write a sentence with a subject and predicate." I'm not sure what "tells me", but I'll assume that it's the same nonexistant subject that's telling him/her about Sterling's website authoring. While I'm at it: "You did by making" should not have been the start of a new sentence. Dependent clauses are, well, dependent. :)
I'll refrain from making a crack about an IE advocate; it's too easy.
Any mistakes in this comment are due to Dr. Dvorak.
--Cole
How would we know?
How would we would we know if Mr. Anonymous did apply? In fact, he might be one of the wannabe dudes that already has. (For all reading, "dudes" is the name of the group containing users who have access to full sudo.)
Anyway, I tend to avoid grudges—too much emotional baggage to carry. If Mr. Anonymous wants to apply, it's a free country. It seems to me that he mostly was just ranting out pure emotion, which I have been known to do on occassion...on this site even.
I keep most rants to myself. My "Drafts" folder contains a number of doozies. It's sometimes helpful to spit on a piece of paper instead of the person you are really ticked off at. You can exercise the emotion, but you don't have stake your reputation or harm yourself while you're being irrational because you feel slighted. It's especially helpful to me because I spend a lot of time calming my temper. I must constantly remind myself, "Be slow to anger and slow to speak. Be angry but do not sin."
mr. anony
Was this guy stupid enough to reply from a CIS machine?
Unfortunately, Mr. Anony is too smart...
...or rather, smart enough to use an anonymous proxy. I looked to see if I could find him, but he's covered over his tracks sufficiently to make any pursuit more difficult than I care to follow.
However, it is nice to know that my blog does have a few readers. :)
Suggestions
Hello All,
I have been watching this thread for a while and wanted to add my comments to some of the concerns from both the perspectives ....as a CIS Sys Manager (Sterling) and Anonymous....( computing lab user)
All the views I am trying to put forth are objective.
Anonymous, as a user we have to respect other computing users and CIS lab policies which have been kept in place. These policies have been in place for years and have only been approved after several hours of careful discussions with focus groups and other user communities. Anonymous try to think from a CIS Sys Admin's perspective.....they have to cater several hundreds of users and other groups. As a user, you cannot phathom the overwhelming workload they have.
I WAS also one of the 'greedy' users who used to lock his machine(now that I have graduated...;)). As one might be well aware that users tend to lock their machines for two reasons (as far as I know...) 1) As a measure to secure a machine once they come back from break. 2) To prevent other users from using the machine as they might be running a process which cannot terminated abruptly. Situation # 1 needs to be addressed as fairly as possible by CIS dept. and I have given my share of thoughts and suggestions in the later part of this comment. As far as situation # 2 is concerned, as a computing user, I would not occupy a machine which is being used by another user OR try putting a valid note which says not to reboot the machine. Anonymous ... in this case administrative installs or other processes do not interrupt other tasks or processes which you have initiated. If you think that your process/task needs more computing or processing time, I am sure you can talk with admins and they would be willing to help you.
Sterling, IIRC students never get opportunity to talk with CIS sys admins collectively about their issues or problems. How about setting up a live forum between CIS users and Sys admins each semester? In this way, you get chance to justify collectively why some policies have been kept in place and can heed to some of the problems that users are facing. I think this would be a better alternative to sending out emails..which might be offending ;). Sterling, it is very difficult to get a machine during midterms or finals and also when homeworks are due.... cant this problem be addressed by squeezing in or adding more machines? I know that there would be some serious budgeting issues but this should be given a careful thought....not that I have not been reading your blogs about recent upgrades.
I wanted to clarify the issue about "Internet Explorer prevented you from experiencing a better internet" which I thought Sterling misinterpreted and as was anonymous who was in a mood to avenge :) . Sterling, when you try to read this particular blog "Responding to grr" using Internet Explorer...this is the message you get ie., "Internet Explorer prevented...." since it was trying to load some Active X control unsuccessfully, page hangs up and we need to close the browser. As you might be well aware, IE blocks all the active x controls from being loaded by default and displays this message in the information bar whose content which I think has been customized by you ;). Am I right...please correct me if I am wrong.
On a closing note, I would like to mention that all the views that I have expressed are objective and not biased. My apologies if anyone feels offended reading my comments.
Very Constructive...
Of course! I remember now. I added a stupid feature to my web site that places that little bar at the top for users that use Internet Explorer that says "Internet Explorer prevented you from having a better browsing experience..." or some such message. My apologies to Mr. Anony (partly). I'd forgotten about that feature because I've never actually seen it. I tried on several browsers, even on my wife's XP machine, but I had no luck seeing it and thought the joke was just broken.
Anyway, that's called humor, so my apology to Mr. Anony isn't a complete apology. It was still a bit over the top for a joke.
My compliments to Vivek. Your comments are quite clear and very positive and helpful.
The idea of having a regular forum for students to comment on the systems is somewhat intriging. I've tried to, as much as possible, advertise the presence of help@cis.ksu.edu as our suggestion box, but a more personal appearance might be helpful. It might be helpful in more ways than just getting students feedback, but might also help general student morale. This idea requires more thought, so maybe the sysadmins can mull over it at our next meeting.
The crowd complaint is one I hear every now and then. Part of the problem isn't lack of machines, but we have a lot of "campers" who hang out in the labs. Often these are students not engaged in academic activities, but just reading news, email, chatting, or playing games. It would be nice to have some concrete policy that stated when the labs are full, recreational use is forbidden, but that's a really gray area. What's recreational? How could we enforce such a policy?
We really can't. I don't really want to either. Enforcing policy is probably the least favorite part of my job and I also don't want to tell people they can't use the computers for recreational use. Why are Computer Scientists here, if not because they find computing recreational?
As for adding more machines to the labs, we might be able to crowd in as many as a half dozen more into Nichols 126 and Nichols 22 if we rearrange, but we're mostly packed in already. I could come up with a long litany of financial barriers too, but I'll spare you. However, it is a problem we have considered and continue to consider. Maybe more computers is the answer, but it's too late in this semester and fiscal year to make that decision.
Anyway, thanks again Vivek.