SUMMARY: Limit to # of directories?

From: Debby Quayle <dquayle_at_hamilton.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 10:22:36 -0400

Wow! This list is the greatest!!!

Thanks to the many who replied (see below)..and any others who might be
sending mail while I'm writing this.

My original question was: "Are there any serious disadvantages to creating
approximately 1800 home directories within a subdirectory called
/usr/users/students?"

SUMMARY:
It appears that in general there are no serious problems with this approach
but several people pointed out two areas of concern (best summarized by
Elliot Smorodinsky).

He wrote:

"1) Make sure the filesystem which contains /usr/users/students
has plenty of inodes available, and

2) depending on your particular implementation, that many
directories may break the upper limit on shell evaluation: things like
'ls' will cease to work. You can get around that program with 'find' and
'xargs', though."

For other newbies like me on this list, Wesley pointed me toward "df -i" as
an easy way to determine the number of inodes in use. My system has
*plenty* free.

Lastly, Burch had a great compromise to suggest which is to subdivide our
student accounts alphabetically. Since we only have 1800 students, I'll
divide the alphabet into quarters.

Thanks again to everyone who took time to write. I hope someday to be able
to return the favor.

THANKS TO:
Burch Seymour RTPS <bseymour_at_encore.com>
 "J.A.Legg" <j.legg_at_ic.ac.uk>
Steve Wright (Sys Adm) <wright_at_cs.sc.edu>
Wesley Darlington <w.darlington_at_am.qub.ac.uk>
Paul A Sand <pas_at_unh.edu>
R.M.Rogers_at_staffs.ac.uk
Joe Wilson <joe.wilson_at_digitalink.com>
Thomas Erskine <tom_at_crc.doc.ca>
Elliot Smorodinsky <elliots_at_epower.net>
Carlos A M dos Santos <casantos_at_cpmet.ufpel.tche.br>


Debby

-------------------------*---------------------------
Debbora (Debby) Bartel Quayle
Asst. Dir.ITS, Technical Support Services/
               Help Desk & E-mail Administration
Information Technology Services Department
Hamilton College (315) 859-4031 dquayle_at_hamilton.edu
-------------------------*---------------------------
Received on Fri Aug 15 1997 - 16:41:51 NZST

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