Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!opal.berkeley.edu!edmoy
From: edmoy@opal.berkeley.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: diskless mac-II A/UX
Message-ID: <5790@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 15:10:22 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.5790
Posted: Thu Nov  5 15:10:22 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 08:55:48 EST
References: <235@bernina.UUCP> <933@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <6633@apple.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: edmoy@opal.berkeley.edu ()
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 50
Keywords: NFS, diskless, A/UX

In article <6633@apple.UUCP> phil@apple.UUCP (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>No, no, Mark - we are NOT against diskless A/UX systems. It is very
>simple - we didn't have the time (and lacked access to appropriate
>source code) to implement the "page serving" protocols that SUN uses.
>We have NFS and YP - but not the disk page protocols. I assure your
>that Apple Marketing, on a regular basis, begs for full diskless
>A/UX capability. The rational demands of Higher Ed are transmitted to
>Apple software engineering with great fervor. If I just
>had another 12 or so very very experienced UNIX programmers ... :-)
>
>
>Philip K. Ronzone
>A/UX Technical Manager

Speaking as someone who has watched (from afar, thank god!) almost a thousand
diskless Suns go out to the UC Berkeley campus and having heard of the many
disasters that the so-called ND (network disk) protocol creates, I would
advise against using ND.  (I think even certain people in Sun have No ND
buttons that they wear.)

The main problem with ND is that on the server, the "disk" is just a huge
file.  If the "file" gets trashed, preventing the client from booting, you
can't poke around on the server side to figure out what's wrong, since it's
just one huge data file and not a hundred odd Unix files in a Unix file system.
The only way to fix the ND partition is to copy a good one on top of it.
Particularily in an environment where users are not all computer science
majors, it too often occurs that users think that if the system doesn't
respond for 10 seconds, it's time for L1-A (Reboot key sequence).  This often
trashes the ND partition, and the client is dead until someone can fix it.

The diskless workstation is an interesting concept, but not without its
problems.  Disk-intensive applications will run like a snail, and large,
memory intensive applications may run slowly also, due to swapping across
the network.

I think the best compromise is the minimum-disk workstation.  Have a small
disk with the essential stuff to boot-up and enough for a good size swap
area.  Then mount a remote filesystem where most of the work is done.
You might even have a medium-disk workstation, which has some extra room for
those times when the server is down, or for running disk-intensive applications.

Edward Moy
Academic Computing Services
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720

edmoy@opal.Berkeley.EDU
ucbvax!opal!edmoy

P.S.  Boy am I glad I have a "diskful" MicroVax II.