Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there?

[Mikhail Goriachev]

User Freebsd wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Aug 2006, Nikolas Britton wrote:
> 
>> This may sound dumb but why don't we just put a registration link on the 
>> FreeBSD main page... or "registration" in sysinstall. Isn't this how 
>> everyone else handles the problem?
> 
> User A installs FreeBSD, registers, works with it for a week, finds he 
> isn't getting anything done with it, wipes the drive and goes to something 
> else ...
> 
> User B installs FreeBSD 5.x, registers, works with it for a while and 
> decides to CVSup to -CURRENT, so now we have an artificially high # of 6.x 
> installs, and an artificially low # of 7.x installs ... nobody looks to be 
> moving to 7.x, therefore why support it from a vendors perspective ...


Right, I've been following this thread from the start but didn't want to
get involved, even though I felt this is important and necessary. I've
come up with this token-based registration idea:

Agent: Knock, knock...
Server: Hi, give us your last 2 tokens...
Agent: I don't have them... I'm a newborn.
Server: Ok. Here's one for you $token1 and come back in 7 days.

7 days later (or more if it's a laptop)

Agent: Knock, knock...
Server: Hi, give us your last 2 tokens...
Agent: I only have 1 token.
Server: Ok. There you go $token2. Get back in 7 days.

7 days later (or more if it's a laptop)

Agent: Knock, knock...
Server: Hi, give us your last 2 tokens...
Agent: Take them, $token1 and $token2.
Server (compares tokens): Thanks, now give us some info about yourself.
Agent: Ok, sending $information.
Server: Thanks, this is another $token3 for you. Come back in 7 days.

... beyond this point the agent is officially registered but must
maintain its rego by reporting every 7 days and keep providing latest 2
tokens ...


In short, an agent must earn the registration. In this case it takes 2
weeks. Once it registers, it becomes a real number in the stats. If that
agent stops reporting for a few months then it gets removed from the
stats. If agent's computer upgrades, then it doesn't matter because it
still sends $information (with updates) every time it reports.

If another agent steals the tokens then it isn't an issue. The victim
gets rejected until it collects new tokens. This is because stolen
tokens already got registered. The burglar, in the other hand, stays
with that stolen registration and resubmits its own $information (uname,
dmesg, whatever), which overwrites victim's data. To strengthen the
system and avoid token high-jacks we could increment the number and
complexity of tokens.

>From users' point of view, there are no registration or scary
configurations. The system takes over and does everything behind the
scenes. For sure, the only necessary thing would be an enable_rego=YES
or similar line in /etc/rc.conf.

In order to cater for the demand, I reckon there would be enough people
willing to donate servers and bandwidth (I'd be one of them). Agents
also could detect the closest server on their own and report to it
(fastest_cvsup[1] style)...

Ok, I'll stop here for now.


Cheers,
Mikhail.


[1] -
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/sysutils/fastest_cvsup/pkg-descr


-- 
Mikhail Goriachev
Webanoide

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