[220] in resnet
remote access to public workstations at night
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gilbert Leung)
Thu Mar 3 00:34:31 1994
To: mlbarrow@MIT.EDU
Cc: resnet@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 03 Mar 94 00:33:35 EST
From: Gilbert Leung <gleung@MIT.EDU>
Hi,
Most resnet folks are telnetting to the dialup machines right now
and hosing them in general. Athena usage is generally very high during the
day, but from 1am to about 9am, usually there are many free public
workstations as a whole n(i.e. the TOTAL in cview). Wouldn't it be nice if
athena can implement something such that resnet people can telnet to these
machines remotely when there are N% of public machines free? Then, that
will encourage people to channel the usage to during the night and maximize
the use of fixed resources.
I have it thought a little. You could have have a general cname
that resolves to a free public machine just like the dialup name service
when there are N% or more public machines free; or one that refuses to
connect when the public clusters are too crowded. Then, that particular
machine being remotely accessed will change its login screen to indicate
that it is being used such that other people who are physically in the
cluster don't have to share 1 workstation with the remote user. To avoid
remote machine-hogging, you could implement the autologout feature just
like the express dialups, either after the remote resnet user stays idle
for a certain time, or as the cluster usage goes up to a certain
percentage. This part shouldn't be hard as it is similar to the dialup
logout procedure and the cview usage polling program is already working.
This scheme is basically an extension to the remote access
available in the current dialups. The actual implementation might be hard
and will take a while to finish. But I think this idea is practical
because
1) it maximizes the use of our fixed resources
2) it provides great convenience for resnet people who work late at night.
Please let me know what you think,
Gilbert
