news.eng denying access
Ryan Shook
On both engmail and novice, via pine, I'm being denieed access to news.eng
(502 error). Can anyone tell me why the new server doesn't love me? Does
it have anything to do with me being 2 terms since being fully registered?
I'd paid my $10 last term.
Ryan
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ryan Shook Mechanical Engineering | RJS...@novice.uwaterloo.ca
Amateur (HAM) Radio Lic.:VE3 TKD | www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/rjshook
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Everybody needs a busom for a pillow, everybody needs a busom"c-shop
Erick Engelke
Ryan Shook <rjs...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>On both engmail and novice, via pine, I'm being denieed access to news.eng
>(502 error). Can anyone tell me why the new server doesn't love me? Does
>it have anything to do with me being 2 terms since being fully registered?
>I'd paid my $10 last term.
This post addresses only Engineering. Students in other faculties
should contact their own computing offices for information about
their systems.
Hi Ryan,
As you have noticed, news is not available to anyone with only mail shell
access. In fact, almost anything which is not required to manage your
mail is not accessible to mail shell users.
On Novice, Pine does not support news reading if you are in the dreaded
mail shell. Full accounts on Novice are not affected. Engmail is simply
unable to connect to news.eng, not even I can read news from Engmail.
In order to read news, one must have a full account on Novice, Workbench,
Polaris, Watstar, or some other system.
These decisions were made by the Associate Dean of Computing, and
are consistent with opinions expressed by the Engineering Computing
Committee (made up of faculty representatives from each of the
departments.)
I believe decisions which say you "can't" do stuff should be explained,
so I will offer an attempt at an explanation here for anyone who
cares to read it. Please remember, these are my interpretations, not
some sort of policy.
From a single user perspective, computing looks real easy. You can
run csh, trn, pine, and it just works, fast or slow, it works or
you complain about things not working.
You and I are probably guilty of walking on the grass sometimes.
We all know that pedestrian traffic will kill the grass, but our
own footprints don't seem to cause an instantaneous death, so
we forget that we add to the problem.
Some parks, golf courses and cemetaries have beautiful lawns. While
we may use those parks and enjoy them, we often forget that it is
effective pedestrian management which makes them possible.
Systems management is rather similar. In order to have
something pleasant to use, we have to effectively manage
its use. Sometimes that means asking people to do something
in a way they don't particularly like.
Engmail is purposefully kept lightly loaded. It's not a killer
machine, it's a workstation. If its load were to go up, we might
see Email backlogs, strange or crappy Email service, and other
effects we don't want to see. Turning Engmail into another
Novice playground would not solve anything. That's why Engmail
can *just* do mail, but it can do it very well and very reliably.
Novice is a rather good computer, but the more people who use it
simultaneously, the worse service each user receives. The mail shell
prevents casual off-stream users from tying up Novice's CPU so it
can concentrate on on-stream users.
Email service is inherently different than news. For one thing, we
give you a permanent (engmail) account so that you can stay in
touch with friends, peers, associates, projects, etc. We encourage
you to use forward fields to redirect the mail to your off-term
Email address, but we give you a login capability so you can
read it even without redirection. This is the extent of what
you can get for free during your off-term time.
But news... where to start? For one thing, there is an endless supply
of news. You can start trn on Jan 1 and just keep reading article after
article until April 30th. There is no natural bound on how much CPU time
you can use.
Also, we have no desire to be an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Yes, we
will sell you an off-stream account, but we try to make it unattractive.
The $10 fee is not to generate revenue, it is to encourage you to find
an alternative so we can focus primarily on on-stream users. The fee
is also applied consistently so that you don't have to ask us to
make special case exceptions - you have the ability to choose if
you *really* need the off-stream account. You are empowerred to
make the decision yourself.
As I mentioned in a previous article, 1722 of the 3978 accounts on
Novice are limited to the mail shell. I don't know how many of the
rest are off-stream $10 accounts, but I know that we would have
many more off-stream heavy users if we didn't impose this barrier.
There are several options for news and other programs if you are
off-stream.
- use your employer's Internet services if they have them
- buy an ISP account (Sympatico, Rogers, Sprint, or a local private ISP)
- use another provider (eg. Computer Science Club)
- buy a $10 Novice account
I know you would never think of this, but I'll add the following comment
for anyone else who might: using another person's account is not an
option. Like driver's licenses, your account is issued only to you
for only your own use and it cannot be shared.
Erick
--
Erick Engelke Engineering Computing
University of Waterloo
Network Systems Manager er...@uwaterloo.ca
Erick Engelke
Again, this pertains only to Engineering students.
Quoth I:
>As you have noticed, news is not available to anyone with only mail shell
>access. In fact, almost anything which is not required to manage your
>mail is not accessible to mail shell users.
I should have pointed out that my answer this morning was also in response
to questions raised by David A. Caldarelli <dacaldar@ece> earlier
this week. I'll summarize:
The default level of service to off-stream students is limited to
a permanent (until we believe you have left UW Engineering) Email address
and the few features needed to manage that Email address (.forward files,
Pine, Elm, ftp, etc.).
The option of upgrading to a $10 Novice account is offerred for
those who wish, but we encourage you to explore other options
so our servers can concentrate more fully on on-stream users.
Services not intended to be available, eg. talk on engmail, may
be discontinued without notice. Ie. we can rectify oversights, but
this should not be used to antagonize users. For instance, I try to Email
users who may be affected by changes, and to post to an appropriate
forum with an explanation if possible. This practice is not perfect, but
it does avoid the big brother feeling which comes from a quiet root
account killing jobs. I think Mr. Caldarelli might have felt better
if he had received an Email explanation at the time of his problems.
To change the default level of service we give to off-stream users
would require a change in policy and probably some expensive
hardware upgrades. I personally don't see an overwhelming need to do
either, but I will accept and collect mail on the subject if sufficiently
widespread interest exists.
Erick
--
Erick Engelke Engineering Computing
University of Waterloo
Manager, Networks and Systems Integration er...@uwaterloo.ca
Matt Corks
First of all, I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, Erick. You
shouldn't be obligated to cater to off-stream students.
I'm responding mostly because of your implication that the Computer Science
Club is a commercial internet service provider. As a member and former exec,
I can tell you that that is most emphatically not our mandate. If every
off-stream engineering student wants to use us as an ISP, that service will
quickly disappear.
Regarding your $10 off-stream accounts: I assume that if this becomes too
popular you'll withdraw the option. In other words, this also isn't a very
general solution.
One problem, however, with having students use commercial ISPs is that they
won't have access to uw.* groups. (I discovered this when looking through
DejaNews and finding many posts from outsiders which never made it to campus.)
Have you considered providing access to just the uw.* groups to people with
the mail shells? I'm not sure how important you feel this is, but I would
guess that it wouldn't be too difficult for you to provide this convenience.
--
Matt Corks, congenital pessimist; 2B + 1/2 Co-Op Math, Comp. Sci., U. Waterloo
PGP key: <mvc...@uwaterloo.ca>, <http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/mvcorks/>
"When you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile."
- Anne Shirley
Ryan Shook
On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Erick Engelke wrote:
> Ryan Shook <rjs...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> >On both engmail and novice, via pine, I'm being denieed access to news.eng
> >(502 error). Can anyone tell me why the new server doesn't love me? Does
> >it have anything to do with me being 2 terms since being fully registered?
> >I'd paid my $10 last term.
>
> I believe decisions which say you "can't" do stuff should be explained,
> so I will offer an attempt at an explanation here for anyone who
> cares to read it. Please remember, these are my interpretations, not
> some sort of policy.
Your effort as a liason is appreciated, The policy makers aren't the
easiest people to communicate with. (Last time I checked neither Burns nor
Downey had email addresses)
> Engmail is purposefully kept lightly loaded. It's not a killer
> machine, it's a workstation. If its load were to go up, we might
> see Email backlogs, strange or crappy Email service, and other
> effects we don't want to see. Turning Engmail into another
> Novice playground would not solve anything. That's why Engmail
> can *just* do mail, but it can do it very well and very reliably.
With this being the case, would it be possible wo add the "uwdir" command
to engmail? The only other resource I know involves pulling up Netscape
to access uwdir. I like being able to hit ctrl-z and type "uwdir david
burns" to figure things out...
> Novice is a rather good computer, but the more people who use it
> simultaneously, the worse service each user receives. The mail shell
> prevents casual off-stream users from tying up Novice's CPU so it
> can concentrate on on-stream users.
As an alternate argument, The offstream is a better time for learning UNIX
than the on-stream, due to student time demands. IE on work term my
evenings are free, at school they aren't in the same way.
> Email service is inherently different than news. For one thing, we
> give you a permanent (engmail) account so that you can stay in
> touch with friends, peers, associates, projects, etc. We encourage
> you to use forward fields to redirect the mail to your off-term
> Email address, but we give you a login capability so you can
> read it even without redirection. This is the extent of what
> you can get for free during your off-term time.
As Matt pointed out it is difficult to get uw.* off campus, in my case
80% of the newsgroups I read are uw.*, and 80% of the articles I read are
uw.general.
On a slightly different tangent, what is the best way to contact the
consultants. I emailed consultant@engmail with this same problem and
didn't get a reply so I ended up posting from Calum. It's interesting to
note that w/o another account, I couldn't have found out what went on, I
couldn't have read uw.watstar to find out why I couldn't read news (?!)
> Also, we have no desire to be an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Yes, we
> will sell you an off-stream account, but we try to make it unattractive.
> The $10 fee is not to generate revenue, it is to encourage you to find
> an alternative so we can focus primarily on on-stream users. The fee
> is also applied consistently so that you don't have to ask us to
> make special case exceptions - you have the ability to choose if
> you *really* need the off-stream account. You are empowerred to
> make the decision yourself.
Well, usually but not always, I failed in S97 and so I have to sit this
term out? Because registration was 2 terms ago not 1 *I can't pay the
$10*, I tried!
I wonder if it is possible to treat "6 year plan" students in a category
of their own. I assume that the "Registered last term" catch is so
graduates can't extend their account for ever, which makes sens, but it
leaaves double-workterm students in the lurch.
Could you please pass a note onto the policy makers noting that
students who are required to sit out an extra term do not have the option
of paying the $10. Thanks
> There are several options for news and other programs if you are
> off-stream.
> - use your employer's Internet services if they have them
> - buy an ISP account (Sympatico, Rogers, Sprint, or a local private ISP)
> - use another provider (eg. Computer Science Club)
> - buy a $10 Novice account
The issues here again are: unavailibility of uw.*, CSC<>ISP (although it
works in a pinch!), $10 option is not always availble.
This leaves me the other provider option, which really means learning
another software package, which isn't the end of the world but needn't be
none the less.
> I know you would never think of this, but I'll add the following comment
> for anyone else who might: using another person's account is not an
> option. Like driver's licenses, your account is issued only to you
> for only your own use and it cannot be shared.
Interesting analogy, I've never thought of that before.
Erick Engelke
Matt Corks <mvc...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>First of all, I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, Erick. You
>shouldn't be obligated to cater to off-stream students.
>
>I'm responding mostly because of your implication that the Computer Science
>Club is a commercial internet service provider. As a member and former exec,
>I can tell you that that is most emphatically not our mandate. If every
>off-stream engineering student wants to use us as an ISP, that service will
>quickly disappear.
Sorry if I gave that perception. I listed it separately because I knew
that someone would mention the CSC, and it is obviously different from
an ISP, or another engineering (eg. sunee) account, or the $10 Novice
extension. Each is offerred for a different reason.
>Regarding your $10 off-stream accounts: I assume that if this becomes too
>popular you'll withdraw the option. In other words, this also isn't a very
>general solution.
I have to disagree. The concept of charging just enough to discourage
overuse is extremely general and has been employed many times on this
campus.
For example, modem access and printing used to be free for many users.
As you can guess, both resources became too heavily used and so we adopted
other strategies which encourage you not to monopolize these resources.
Luckily, we can now operate modem pools and *most* printing at roughly
break-even rates thanks to lower costs as technologies get cheaper. But
colour printing within the faculties and many other services are often
still operated at a loss. The solution? Rates are set to cover much of the
expense, but they also discourage users from wildly overusing this service
which costs our operation money.
It is a solution as long as it is unattractive enough to keep the numbers
manageable. If the numbers increase too much, we have to look at why
and then consider options of how or if we should meet that trend.
It's been a few years since I checked, but CSC used to charge $2
per calcum account per term. Clearly the CSC leadership discoverred the
same idea of letting people decide if they really wanted an account.
>One problem, however, with having students use commercial ISPs is that they
>won't have access to uw.* groups.
I had been thinking about that too. I'll look into some options and
reply back here when I'm done.
Erick Engelke
Ryan Shook <rjs...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Erick Engelke wrote:
>>
>> I believe decisions which say you "can't" do stuff should be explained,
>> so I will offer an attempt at an explanation here for anyone who
>> cares to read it. Please remember, these are my interpretations, not
>> some sort of policy.
>
>Your effort as a liason is appreciated, The policy makers aren't the
>easiest people to communicate with. (Last time I checked neither Burns nor
>Downey had email addresses)
Thankfully, I'm not a dean and don't have to make as many hard decisions
as they must.
However, I have the opportunity to influence policy at many levels, so I'm
happy to collect user input to keep us in tune with what you think is
important.
I think it's also important to show why some seemingly reasonable requests
cannot be granted. Who's going to follow policy unless it makes sense?
>With this being the case, would it be possible wo add the "uwdir" command
>to engmail? The only other resource I know involves pulling up Netscape
>to access uwdir. I like being able to hit ctrl-z and type "uwdir david
>burns" to figure things out...
Sounds reasonable. I'll check it out.
>> Novice is a rather good computer, but the more people who use it
>> simultaneously, the worse service each user receives. The mail shell
>> prevents casual off-stream users from tying up Novice's CPU so it
>> can concentrate on on-stream users.
>
>As an alternate argument, The offstream is a better time for learning UNIX
>than the on-stream, due to student time demands. IE on work term my
>evenings are free, at school they aren't in the same way.
Might I humbly suggest you borrow a Linux or FreeBSD CD and try it
on your home computer.
Engmail (and news.eng, and starservgate, and ahsmail and artsmail and some
others) are all some form of pentium or pentium pro running FreeBSD.
For a user workstation, Linux is more popular and it works with more
varied hardware, so it is also a fine choice.
>On a slightly different tangent, what is the best way to contact the
>consultants. I emailed consultant@engmail with this same problem and
>didn't get a reply ...
I heard that they were backlogged for a few days but have since
replied to everyone.
>> Also, we have no desire to be an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Yes, we
>> will sell you an off-stream account, but we try to make it unattractive.
>>...
>Well, usually but not always, I failed in S97 and so I have to sit this
>term out? Because registration was 2 terms ago not 1 *I can't pay the
>$10*, I tried!
When it was set up, the intention was to allow accounts until 8 months after
the last registerred school term. This was supposed to deal with the
double work term. I'll check next week to see why this didn't work for you.
>> I know you would never think of this, but I'll add the following comment
>> for anyone else who might: using another person's account is not an
>> option. Like driver's licenses, your account is issued only to you
>> for only your own use and it cannot be shared.
>
>Interesting analogy, I've never thought of that before.
Of all the analogies I've heard, it best represents the formal computing
policies at this insitution.
Srikant Cheruvu
[disclaimer] The following lines were posted by <ahem>
er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Erick Engelke), on Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:16:40
GMT. They have nothing to do with the author of this post !
>>One problem, however, with having students use commercial ISPs is that they
>>won't have access to uw.* groups.
>
>I had been thinking about that too. I'll look into some options and
>reply back here when I'm done.
...which is not entirely true, though. I'm using Sprint as my
off-stream ISP, and I'm still able to access all the uw.* newsgroups.
I guess it depends on which ISP you use.
~srikant
2N Computer Engineering
Erick Engelke
Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Ryan Shook <rjs...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>Jan 1998, Erick Engelke wrote:
>
>>> Also, we have no desire to be an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Yes, we
>>> will sell you an off-stream account, but we try to make it unattractive.
>>Well, usually but not always, I failed in S97 and so I have to sit this
>>term out? Because registration was 2 terms ago not 1 *I can't pay the
>>$10*, I tried!
>
>the last registerred school term. This was supposed to deal with the
>double work term. I'll check next week to see why this didn't work for you.
Okay, here's the facts for Engineering. As usual I'll mention the general
case for the benefit of others, so please excuse what you don't need.
You can use the account creation stuff to create your own account during
your school term.
You can use the same account creation stuff to extend your account
into the next term. The tools and rules apply to both free accounts
(eg. mailshell) and paid accounts like Polaris or Novice.
(Note, extend implies it has to happen before the end of the registerred
term. Huh? Well, it would be incorrect to say extend if the account
already expired and was deleted, one could not really extend something
that was no more...)
After those two very common general cases, anything else requires a
bit of human intervention. You would have to pop into the consulting
office (or use Email) and explain your case so they understand why
they are being asked to give an account to someone the registrar's office
has long forgotten.
I'll give a sample conversation. Note the civility of the message and
yet the clear and obvious statement of facts. This is entirely common.
Student: Hi.
Consultant: Salutations.
Student: Here's my student card.
I'm doing a double work term here in Waterloo
and I would like to extend my *full* Novice account for the
second term because I'm using it to work on a
work term report.
Consultant: No problem. But the full novice account cost's $10 per term.
Do you have $10 in your laser account.
Student: Alas, I do not. Will that be a problem?
Consultant: Well, I'll send the request up to the folks who
have to manually take care of it. You should
swipe your Watcard twice at the Laser money station
in the hallway so there will be $10 on your account
and they can extend your account.
And here's your student card.
Student: Wonderful. Many many thanks. See you in a few months.
Mike Martin
Erick Engelke wrote:
> ..stuff cut...
> I'll give a sample conversation. Note the civility of the message and
>
> yet the clear and obvious statement of facts. This is entirely
> common.
>
> Student: Hi.
>
> Consultant: Salutations.
>
> Student: Here's my student card.
> I'm doing a double work term here in Waterloo
> and I would like to extend my *full* Novice account for
> the
> second term because I'm using it to work on a
> work term report.
>
> Consultant: No problem. But the full novice account cost's $10 per
> term.
> Do you have $10 in your laser account.
..stuff cut...
Does this imply that we ARE now allowed to use Novice for useful things
as opposed to just "Learning UNIX". I won't every be chastized again for
attempting to compile a LaTeX report required in one of my courses?
Sorry if this is old news...
Erick Engelke
Mike Martin <mama...@engmail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Erick Engelke wrote:
>
>> ..stuff cut...
>> I'll give a sample conversation. Note the civility of the message and
>> yet the clear and obvious statement of facts. This is entirely
>> common.
>>
>
>as opposed to just "Learning UNIX". I won't every be chastized again for
>attempting to compile a LaTeX report required in one of my courses?
>Sorry if this is old news...
The distinction of "learning unix" was not supposed to be an impediment.
Let me explain...
Engineering Computing operates numerous Unix and Waterloo Polaris systems.
On the unix side, each undergrad Engineering student will have a Novice
account, an Engmail account, and possibly an Apprentice Lab account.
We assign Apprentice Lab accounts when a course requires
some unix program. Thus, we stock that lab with software as needed for those
courses, and we can remove that software when it is not used for courses.
And since that room is used for couses, we have the option of closing
it at the end of each term to clean up the machines as needed. The only
downside is that we have to clear out those accounts at the end of term.
Sooooo, an undergrad could not rely on the Apprentice lab as a permanent
account - something people have said they want.
By contrast, we give any interested Engineering undergrad an account
on Novice so you can learn and use unix, just as we do with Waterloo Polaris.
And we let you keep the account around, so you can use it on work terms,
or in the weeks between school terms.
To keep Novice working, we had to remove enormous programs (like MatLab
and Netscape), but otherwise the machine can be used in any way appropriate
for your education as long as you don't inflict pain on others or break
the posted rules.
The rules which apply should be:
- the governing laws of Canada, Ontario, and this municipality
- the rules which we post in the labs each term (eg. don't fake Email)
- UW policies (eg. ethics) or guidelines
(eg. see http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infocist)
- this Faculty's accepted standards (eg. see the plaque outside the C&D)
- similarly official stuff
they could all be summarized by asking yourself, "would my mother be upset
if the school called her and said I did this?" because laws and rules are
usually common sense.
There are also times when we administrators have to make decisions and ask
people not to do things. For example, a matrix calcuation program is fine,
but sometimes someone shows up with a program which fills all available memory
on Novice. I find most people are very sympathetic and co-operative
when given an explanation. In the case of the matrix problem, the solution
might be a smaller matrix, a sparse matrix algorithm, moving the program to
a different machine, etc.
Well Mike, in posts like this I try to address the general questions, or
rephrase them so the largest possible audience benefits. If your problem
is unresolved, you can talk to the consultants or Email me directly if you
wish.