Grex Coop Conference

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Grex Coop Item 268: MySQL Traceroute/ping/nmap access
Entered by veek on Wed Feb 10 13:16:19 UTC 2010:

MySql is a database that has no user-lvl quotas built-in BUT it is 
commonly used by many hobby programmers who cannot afford a legal copy 
of Oracle. What we would need to do is allot some space initially 
(500MB - use dd and mount via loopback?), install MySQL, give someone 
DB admin perms to create databases and grant rights to users wanting DB 
access - root access not required.

If evil-user fills up the 500MB, DB-admin will run his script to check 
which user has exceeded his quota, and purge evil-user and the evil-db. 
I'd be willing to handle the grunt work - daily mail requests, DB not 
wrking; staff would need to do the initial install. 

Eventually we'd need to scale up IF there were a lot of requests  BUT 
we could recycle the unused accounts more quickly.
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Regarding traceroute/ping/nmap.. would it be possible to permit a small 
wrapper around these useful tools? The wrapper would only permit a 
fixed amount of ping/traceroute pkts per day (so you can't use Grex 
bandwidth to hose someone) - they'd take any IP. For nmap, it's useful 
for testing your firewall and yes there are other sites that do this 
BUT could we offer this service?

6 responses total.

#1 of 6 by kentn on Wed Feb 10 13:29:33 2010:

From reading the Grex web site and the system setup information
there, it seemed Grex had a MySQL DB at one time (used for equipment
inventory).

If we were to install a MySQL DB, what you use it for?  What would
others like to use it for?

#2 of 6 by cross on Wed Feb 10 14:16:23 2010:

I think we already run PostgreSQL which is better than MySQL.  Why not use
that instead?

#3 of 6 by cross on Wed Feb 10 14:17:15 2010:

FOr that matter, MySQL's already installed and running.

#4 of 6 by veek on Wed Feb 10 15:11:03 2010:

Re #3: yeah but.. we don't have some set procedure to get access to 
DB's, the way we can with the home-page (mkhomepg) - which is user 
operated and practically instantaneous. Also, what's the DB size limit 
and DB details (login, password, access method - we should have some 
sample code for n00bs - Ruby+Python+Perl). Also, umm.. the web-page 
doesn't reflect the state of things. umm.. no offense intended and 
stuff. I mean umm.. postfix is running..

MySQL seems more the type for hobby programming than PostgreSQL which 
was why I suggested that and from what I've observed with IRC is that 
there are more ppl asking about MySQL.

My plan (re #1) was something like this.. after the Wiki article was 
complete, we mail Make Magazine and LifeHacker and anyone else I can 
Google and ask them to check us (and Arbornet) out and tell emm that we 
are the best free-shell provider in existence (which means we need to 
blow SDF out of the water in terms of free usage). Which means it 
should be SPEEDY and should have lots of goodies. Basically a single/
small page should give emm all the details to start programming, get 
help, send email, setup filters, know what their quotas are, how to 
purge their account - like a cheat sheet. So when reporter comes, she 
looks at the cheat sheet, tries everything out, sees more users than 
SDF, decides Grex is a useful tool and writes a nice article that 
brings in lots of DIY types and hackers.

I really don't use Grex for programming - i have my PC for that, but 
it's nice to test perl snippets and I first came to grex because I 
wanted to do a whois or something..

#5 of 6 by tsty on Wed Feb 10 16:16:30 2010:

  
aacs   http://www.computersociety.org ... -just- had 

PostgreSQL:
Overview and what is new with 8.5

with Aaron Thul

  Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 @ 6pm

a couple days ago ... the guy is an evangelist .. and PostgreSQL would
semm to elevate grex a bit.

#6 of 6 by kentn on Wed Feb 10 18:29:51 2010:

I use PostgreSQL at home & it works great.  It may be a bit over the top
in terms of its abilities and features compared to MySQL, but if we have
it running, great.

As for MySQL, apparently we don't have the data that the inventory web
page needs.  It says that MySQL isn't available right now.  (I don't
know how useful that is at this point with an inventory that is a very
short list).

The main thing for databases is how do users get permission to set up
their own data?  Obviously these two databases are not well-advertised.

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