safe scripting the tilde way

Welcome to tilde.club. For many of you this may be your first multi-user host and for even more of you this may be your first host. Welcome to all of you.

Whether you are used to Unix, Linux and programming or a complete beginner please consider this an invitation to create and build new things.

It’s important when creating however that we respect the shared environment and that we respect the boundaries of others.

As Paul says:

no drama. be respectful. have fun.

What does that mean with respect to scripting and programming on a shared host?

• DOs
  • Respect shared CPU/Disk/Network resources
  • Keep things that require a tilde.club login local to the server (don’t post publicly) :
    • Finger info
    • local home directory files such as ~/.plan and ~/.profile files
    • Note that exceptions could include an opt-in file or special permissions from the user.
  • Respect robots.txt when writing web crawlers

In short use your common sense and consider how your actions may affect others.

If you are unsure if something is a good idea or not, head to irc or message using the wall command and ask others what they think.

If you want a conclusive answer, contact one of the system operators.

Thinking privacy §

Consider the source of the data.

E.g. We know that finger data might contain personal data such as phone numbers, and other identifying information and is not generally available without a tilde.club login.

Before exposing data such as this to the world, it should check for an opt in file such as the .public file file test before presenting info to the outside world.

Shared Resources §

• In general
  • Consider executing long running processes during overnight hours when fewer users are on the system
• CPU
  • Use the nice command to keep intensive processes from affecting others
    • The nice -n19 -p$$ placed in a script will make sure it runs at the lowest priority.
    • Run a long command at the lowest CPU priority: nice -n 19 ~/bin/command
    • Change the priority of process 923 (also known as “re-nicing a process”) : renice -17 -p923
• Disk
  • On any commands that will heavily use disk, consider using the ionice command so that scripts will not affect interactive users
    • By adding the ionice -c3 -p$$ command to any script, it will only use disk when idle.
    • You can also run a command or script: ionice -c3 -t ~/bin/command