LogicProbe - Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What equipment is hosting this site?
A. An oct-processor Sun Enterprise 4000 machine running Solaris 9. Look up "Heracles" on the systems info page for more detailed specs.

Q. Are shell accounts and server space available for any interested party?
A. Absolutely! The only requirement, however, is that you are someone that I know and am friendly with. I'm not a totally open shell provider, due to the administrative and security hassles, as well as the upstream limitations on residential internet connections.

Q. What are the benefits of a LogicProbe account?
A. There are many benefits! First of all, you get web space on the server. Then, you have the option of getting a "yourname@logicprobe.org" e-mail alias that points anywhere you want. The best feature, IMHO, was the multi-platform experience we used to offer. You see, I had a lot of different machines kicking around. Once you had a LogicProbe account, you were able to log into any of them that was running a NIS client. This used to provide full shell access to AIX, FreeBSD, and Solaris. These days, I've signifigantly reduced the number of machines I run, in favor of a fancier network and generally better machines. In any case, I still keep the infrastructure for distributed logins, so various machines can be added and removed as desired.

Q. What happens if you have to take the machines offline for any reason?
A. If circumstances require that I bring the servers offline for an extended period, don't worry. I generally find someone to v-host the site durring such times. However, given that I no longer live in a college dorm, I don't really have extended downtime anymore. Most of my downtime is due to local maintenence, and often brief and infrequent.

Q. What is a "logic probe"?
A. It is a device used to detect logic levels in a circuit. Nate and I picked it because we needed a domain name, and it sounded cool.

Q. Who is Nate, and why is he involved?
A. Nate attended RPI for a brief period, when we met. LogicProbe's first server was one of his machines that was installed in my dorm room. For a while, Nate provided the various aspects of LogicProbe's services requiring an off-site server such as DNS and mail aliasing. These days, Jameel tends to provide those things, so Nate's mention is mainly due to historical reasons.