Uptime is the amount of time a server has been up, available, running, working, executing. This is time that is not spent idle, but time spent busy serving.
{% if days_since_last_boot|int > 14 %}This is unusual, we are used to our server crashing quite often, especially when we are all sharing the space and editing at the same time. Our server, chopchop, chops up time into small bits of surprise in which we learn that the technologies we rely on are never just up and running on their own. They require people to care for them, to put in the time and the mindspace to figure out how to keep them running and available.{% else %}This short of an uptime is common, the fragility of these machines are more prominent than any cloud user expects. Partially because of scale, partially because a lot of labour that happens in datacenters just escapes us all when we want to just upload an image, or just send a message, or just open a webpage.{% endif %}
Users are assigned to groups, which allow them rights to read or edit files, run commands or apply infrastructural changes. For chopchop, we all have 'sudo rights': the ability to perform any command, including the more sensitive ones. Sudo is a command that's short for 'superuser do', with it, a user has more privileges, like installing or updating a package or performing a restart.
{% if users_created_today|length > 0 %}{{last_user_name}} user was added, and the network of trust grew ever so slightly. Users will be trusted with not just the keys and passwords to the "house" which is the server, but with a
portion of responsibility to keep it afloat and contribute to what makes it a community of practices (and
Packages are often installed to use different software or coding languages or build alternative tools. Often users have to talk about and consider which packages they need and why, as well as how much storage they take up and how they will change their interactions with and on their shared server.
Packages could be removed because of consuming too much storage, not being used by the people who share the server, or they are no longer secure. It is often good practice to 'do some spring cleaning' every now and then and remove the packages that no longer serve you any purpose.
Users can login to the server using the SSH (secure shell) protocol. This allows a user to explore files, make changes, run commands and speak to the server from their own machine. This is useful when working remotely, and also to allow multiple users logging into the server simultaneously. Current XPUB1 students have a chopchop user, as well as the tutors. Additionally, there are some users not associated with a person, like our shared user 'chipchip' and users for running specific processes or creating projects.
These new working groups were added today. They might be used for creating new projects, maintaining or managing parts of the server, or for organizational purposes.
It seems that a user was removed. This doesn't happen too often... It could be that they have done something to lose the trust of the community. The circle of trust shrunk ever so slightly.