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

Ted Mittelstaedt tedm at toybox.placo.com
Sat Jul 29 04:59:21 UTC 2006


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nikolas Britton" <nikolas.britton at gmail.com>
To: "Atom Powers" <atom.powers at gmail.com>
Cc: <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>; "User Freebsd" <freebsd at hub.org>
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there?


> On 7/28/06, Atom Powers <atom.powers at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/28/06, User Freebsd <freebsd at 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.
>

You might think this sounds harmless but folks have done this kind
of thing in the past with other products and wreaked havoc on the
Internet.  You can start by referencing "dlink ntp fiasco" in google to
get an idea of what can happen to these kinds of well meaning
attempts.  Let sleeping dogs lie.  People just don't realize just how very
big the Internet is.

Ted



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