Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!husc6!linus!philabs!ttidca!sa
From: sa@ttidca.TTI.COM (Steve Alter)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Arbitron "Users" count is very wrong under BSD
Message-ID: <1958@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 19 Feb 88 05:21:44 GMT
References: <15538@onfcanim.UUCP> <247@bacchus.DEC.COM> <181@wundt.psy.vu.nl> <585@nusdhub.UUCP>
Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica
Lines: 26

In article <585@nusdhub> rwhite@nusdhub (Robert C. White Jr.) writes:
} Each of us has a certain number of entries in our /etc/passwd files
} which do not represent valid users, that is obvious,  it is also
} relativly constant as a scalar quantity.  While the actual number
} of valid users may vary greatly on some systems [schools especially]
} the actual number of deamons is about the same on any given system
} over any given time.
 
(:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)  (:-)
Relatively constant as a scalar quantity?  My foot!  Fully
*two-thirds* of our password-file (which was around 1700 lines
this morning) is occupied by these non-user accounts!  They're
project accounts; they're scattered throughout the file, and
more of them appear every week.  I had to do some major hacking
on that little section of arbitron to get it to come up with a
semi-accurate count of our real users.

Of course, we're definitely the exception. {8-)

Smileys included because this is just a fun (non-informative)
and non-flaming posting, but it's still the truth.
(-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)  (-:)

-- Steve Alter
...!{csun,rdlvax,trwrb,psivax}!ttidca!alter  or  alter@tti.com
Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica CA  (213) 452-9191 x2541