On 07/30/99 21:27:32 you wrote:
Netapp - why do you do these things to me?!?!?!?!?
Graham
Graham - why would you rely on undocumented and unsupported commands and risk disappointing your management?!?!?
Bruce
sirbruce@ix.netcom.com wrote:
On 07/30/99 21:27:32 you wrote:
Netapp - why do you do these things to me?!?!?!?!?
Graham
Graham - why would you rely on undocumented and unsupported commands and risk disappointing your management?!?!?
Bruce
Isn't NetApp giving courses on the "secrets" of using these commands to better administer filers? That takes it out of the "undocumented and unsupported" realm somewhat, don't you think?
-ste
On Jul 31, sirbruce@ix.netcom.com wrote:
On 07/30/99 21:27:32 you wrote:
Netapp - why do you do these things to me?!?!?!?!?
Graham
Graham - why would you rely on undocumented and unsupported commands and risk disappointing your management?!?!?
Bruce
I have to say, I think this is more NetApp's fault than Graham's.
I mean, yes, it would be safer to use only documented commands, but -- as people have observed here before -- NetApp has so many undocumented commands, some of which are really useful, that many people know about rc_toggle_basic and use at least a little of the stuff in there.
Some of you may remember the note I wrote about secret commands and how this is an area where we got confused about "appliance philosophy".
Brian Ehrmantraut (our Chief Simpleton) is running an internal project to fix all of this. His goal is to figure out which rc_toggle_basic commands people actually use, and document them.
We may also design new UIs for some of the commands, since many were designed for internal engineering test use, rather than for customer use. However, we are concerned about backward compatibility, so in some cases we may end up with a new prefered command as well as an old, deprecated command. One obvious concern on redesigning command UIs is breaking scripts, so we are especially interested in knowing which rc_toggle_basic commands people have built into scripts.
As you can see, we have created a bit of a mess for ourselves. Slowly but surely we are going to dig our way out.
Dave
Brian Ehrmantraut (our Chief Simpleton) is running an internal project to fix all of this. His goal is to figure out which rc_toggle_basic commands people actually use, and document them.
Dave forces my hand here - I was in the midst of composing a note to toasters on this very subject.
The short of it is - I am currently talking with our engineers, our CS staff, our SEs, and our customers to find out what commands in the rc_toggle_basic morass they find useful in filer management. We will in some as-yet-unspecified release be cleaning up the command structure, and documenting and supporting the useful commands.
One obvious concern on redesigning command UIs is breaking scripts, so we are especially interested in knowing which rc_toggle_basic commands people have built into scripts.
And to this end, I'd like to ask a favor of you all - could you please take a moment to send me off a short note with a list of the rc_toggle_basic commands you need supported. Please also note which ones you use in scripts. Send your note to me directly - I will summarize the results to toasters if enough interest is indicated.
Thanks,
Brian A. Ehrmantraut Chief Simpleton
Network Appliance, 2770 San Tomas Expwy, Santa Clara , CA 95051 voice: (408) 822-6617 fax: (408) 822-4457
On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Dave Hitz wrote:
One obvious concern on redesigning command UIs is breaking scripts, so we are especially interested in knowing which rc_toggle_basic commands people have built into scripts.
Here is a short list of commands I've been caught using. I don't have any of these in my scripts, but they are indispensable for me.
ypset (extremely usefull for networks w/o local NIS servers)
ypmatch (this doesn't seem to work now, but it would be nice to have to make sure that the filer has access to the right maps)
ypcat (see directly above)
On a side note, is there a command to be used from the console or rsh that allows one to log off the telnet session. This would be extremely usefull as some of our admins telnet in from Windows making it relatively hard to log them off.
Tom
sirbruce@ix.netcom.com wrote:
On 07/30/99 21:27:32 you wrote:
Netapp - why do you do these things to me?!?!?!?!?
Graham
Graham - why would you rely on undocumented and unsupported commands and risk disappointing your management?!?!?
Bruce
I think "rely" is an overstatement. I thought it was useful enough to use, but i certainly wasn't relying on it. Thanks for the insightful input though!!
Graham