[703] in athena10
Re: "Other Options" xlogin button
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathon Weiss)
Fri Dec 5 14:52:24 2008
Message-Id: <200812051951.mB5JpO7S024595@speaker-for-the-dead.mit.edu>
From: Jonathon Weiss <jweiss@MIT.EDU>
To: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
cc: athena10@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:25:33 EST."
<D9C47A60-7046-450C-B87E-083439A9B0C4@mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:51:24 -0500
Still cathcing up. A couple of quick notes.
1) I suspect that xcluster is getting less and less useful, since a)
it doesn't include windows machines and b) I get the impression the
clusters are generally a lot less full than they used to be.
2) Note that mitvma does still exist (it's just outsourced and only
used for one application). It's probably fine to drop the login
support for it, but I wan'ted to make sure we were making an
informed decision.
3) If it's reasonable secure (or secure enough in combination with the
snapshot technology we expect to use) then it is probably the right
choice. This will also make random quickstations in the hallways
more useful to anyone who happens to be walking by which is
probably a feature, but could conceivably add more competition for
these machines.
Jonathon
> This is related to Quentin's thread about gdm, but because it's a
> policy discussion and not a technical one, I chose to start a new
> thread.
>
> Bill and I talked about the buttons today, and we took a look under
> "Other Options"
>
> - xcluster (arguably still useful)
> - library access (Barton telnet hasn't worked in years)
> - Workstation information (no one uses it, and athinfo provides the
> same information)
> - MITVMA login (desupport)
> - moira (namespace) - desupport, people can use webmoira or login for
> chpobox
> - Shut down window system, aka Ctrl-P (can be useful)
> - 8 bit mode (which is only needed for arcane Sun software, so it
> should go away)
>
> There's also the "Register for an Account" button, which arguably has
> a higher priority over things in the Other Options menu.
>
> I propose one of the following:
>
> a) Set up buttons to run custom commands for xcluster and account
> registration. We only include them in debathena-cluster, and we force
> DISPLAY to :0.0 under the assumption that cluster hardware will only
> ever have one display.
>
> b) Eliminate buttons completely, and re-enable the old "register"
> account to allow people to register that way.
>
> c) Create a single button that runs a browser in "kiosk mode" (defined
> however we want), and thus allows people to run the reg applet, access
> the cluster map, access barton, and do all sorts of neat stuff.
>
> It's important to note that we (OLC, Accounts) would like some method
> of account registration to be available from an Athena workstation. A
> problem we frequently encounter is that someone cannot use the
> registration applet because of browser incompatibilities, Java
> incompatibilities, or other problems. The easiest answer to that
> problem is "Go find an Athena workstation", since we know that the reg
> applet on a workstation always works, and it takes much less time than
> sorting out weird Java problems on Windows.
>
> -Jon
