Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:39:05 -0500
From:      "Nikolas Britton" <nikolas.britton@gmail.com>
To:        "Atom Powers" <atom.powers@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, User Freebsd <freebsd@hub.org>
Subject:   Re: Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there?
Message-ID:  <ef10de9a0607282139i51fdde5ch58525fa3347364d2@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <df9ac37c0607281319s5da0f64ese5fa57df1ef11a4d@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <20060728164526.E27679@ganymede.hub.org> <df9ac37c0607281319s5da0f64ese5fa57df1ef11a4d@mail.gmail.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 7/28/06, Atom Powers <atom.powers@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/28/06, User Freebsd <freebsd@hub.org> wrote:
> >
> > Towards that end, as a starter, I would like to encourage everyone out
> > there running 1 or more FreeBSD boxes to go to
> >
> >            http://www.mreriksson.net/uptimes
> >
> > register all of your hosts, and install /usr/ports/sysutils/uptimec and
> > get it running ...
> >
>
> Heh. You won't get more than a tiny percentage of hosts that way; I
> believe most of us, even those on this list (which is nowhere close to
> the total user base), don't care to be listed.
>
> My shop runs 30+ FreeBSD hosts, and I have several more for personal
> use. But of those there are maybe 2-3 that I would be ok with listing
> and exactly zero that I will actually list. It's not that I don't want
> to help, but I'm not going to run a process like that on a production
> server.
>

What about sending something as simple as uname -mr?

> uname -mr
6.1-STABLE i386

The only way this idea will work is if we put some code in the base
system that sends something generic every few months. for example.
Send 'uname -mr' to stats.freebsd.org every 3 months. It would be very
easy to 'opt out', perhaps stats_enable="NO" in rc.conf.

Alternatively we could make it 'opt in' at install time. The installer
could add stats_enable="YES" to rc.conf when someone answers yes.

The actual code to implement this is trivial, something like a few
lines of shell script and a config file that lists the next send date.
This config file can be checked during the monthly periodic and if
needed trigger the stats script to send the anonymous data and update
the next send date in the config file. If the stats script can't find
a path out it should update the next send date and then die.



-- 
BSD Podcasts @:
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/
http://freebsdforall.blogspot.com/



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?ef10de9a0607282139i51fdde5ch58525fa3347364d2>