Greetings UNIX eunuchs,
A big "thankyou" to:
Kirk Rafferty krafferty_at_no-spam.worldnett.att.net
Tom Webster webster_at_ssdpdc.lgb.cal.boeing.com
for their kind replies; here is a quick praise:
Kirk Rafferty(krafferty_at_no-spam.worldnett.att.net):
> I've always used a general rule of thumb that goes like this: If the
> machine has more than 400 users, or will potentially grow to more than
> 400 users, I break up the home directories. 400 is an arbitrary number
> that I pulled out of my ear, but seems to be a good one for me, based on
> my experience. BTW, some sites I've worked break them up by alpha, some
> by department codes, employee/student number, etc.
>
> As far as administering them, it depends on what you want to do. I've
> always used perl or shell scripts to modify the passwd file if I have to
> move home directories. If you do this, make backup copies of the passwd
> file, and then run your script on a copy.
Tom Webster(webster_at_ssdpdc.lgb.cal.boeing.com) wrote:
> Actually the traditional style looks more like, depending on the
> number of users vs the size of their home dirs:
>
> /u01/a/alan
> /u01/b/brian
> /u02/c/charlie
> /u02/d/dave
>
> or
>
> /u01/alan
> /u01/brian
> /u02/charlie
> /u02/dave
>
> or
>
> /a/u001/aaron
> /a/u002/alan
> /a/u003/albert
> /b/u004/beth
> /b/u005/brian
> Generally this was done to get around the filesystem/disk size limits
> imposed by early versions of UNIX. I've seen all three used. I've also
> seen situations where the second style was the physical layer (/u01/alan),
> but then /home was a link farm back to the user's physical home directory.
> This was on an HP/UX 9.07 box which had a max size of 4GB/filesystem and
> the user's home space totaled 32GB.
Original posting follows:
> This may be a bit of a "gut feeling" type question, but here goes:
>
> I have noticed that at some sites, the home directories on the file server
> are split into subdirectories by the first letter of the username:
>
> /u01/home/a/alan
> ...
> /u01/home/b/brian
> ...
> /u01/home/c/charlie
> ...
> /u01/home/d/dave
> ...
> etc...
>
> Presumably, this is to reduce the overhead in processing a directory
> with hundreds and 1000s of entries in it (which can become excessive)..
>
> 1. How many users do you need to have before this sort of thing becomes
> a necessity???
>
> 2. Are there any scripts or programs to assist with administrating a large
> user database (apart from the standard things), and/or something to assist
> with converting home dirs from one type to the other???
TTFN, fRAnX.
--
Frank Gallacher, Sys. ANALyst/Programmer,(aka.frAnXoSAURus reX)
Systems D&I, Operator Assisted Services, Telstra (TELecom auSTRAlia).
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Received on Mon Sep 01 1997 - 09:34:10 NZST