1ws_allocate(1) General Commands Manual ws_allocate(1)
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6 ws_allocate - create a workspace directory and return its path
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10 ws_allocate [-h] [-x] [-g] [-F FILESYSTEM] [-r DAYS] [-m MAILADDRESS]
11 [-c COMMENT] NAME DURATION
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15 Create a workspace for the calling user with name NAME which will exist
16 for DURATION days. The command will always return the full name of the
17 created directory on stdout, and will print some information to stderr.
18 A workspace has a limited lifetime, which can be restricted by the
19 administrator. The DURATION might be cut to that maximum, a warning
20 will be printed in that case.
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22 A workspace can be extended if allowed by the administrator, who might
23 limit the number of extensions.
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25 A reminder email can be sent to address MAILADDRESS (or address from
26 ~/.ws_user.conf) DAYS before the workspace expires. This will done
27 probably during a nightly cleanup run, do not expect it to come exactly
28 in time but rather the night after the warning period is met.
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30 The idea of the workspace is to allow the administrator to keep control
31 of filespace in working filesystems, and to avoid the situations that
32 data of past and finished projects/jobs is idling for ever on disks. A
33 user can create and dispose arbitrary number of workspaces, they are
34 cheap, and can be created e.g. for each job.
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36 For the administrator, workspaces offer further advantages, like beeing
37 able to migrate users to another filesystem over time, and to do load‐
38 balancing over directories and filesystems.
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40 From the system side, workspaces will be deleted after beeing expired.
41 A friendly user can release workspaces before the expiration date using
42 ws_release which will mark the workspace for future deletion and make
43 the data unavailable for the user.
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45 Deletion is probably a task done once a night and not immediately.
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47 If a workspace was forgotten and expired, it might make sense to con‐
48 tact the administrator, as he probaly can restore a workspace for some
49 time, if disk space is not low. Check if ws_restore is available to
50 restore workspaces that are still in the hidden area.
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54 -h display usage help text
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56 -x extend an existing workspace until today + DURATION days. The
57 number of extensions can be limited. Can be combined with -m to
58 add a mail address and with -r to add reminder to existing
59 workspaces. If used with 0 as duration, it does not consume an
60 extension.
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62 -F select the filesystem to create the workspace in, there is
63 always a default for this. See ws_list -l for a list of avail‐
64 able filesystems.
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66 -m mailaddress to send reminder mail to, can be combined with -x to
67 add mailaddress to existing workspace (combine with duration 0).
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69 -c comment to attach to workspace, can be combined with -x to
70 change comment of an existing workspace (combine with duration
71 0).
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73 -r DAYS
74 reminder email will be sent DAYS days before the workspace will
75 expire, can be combined with -x to add reminder to existing
76 workspace. This could be sent in the night after the exact point
77 in time, during a cleanup. See ws_send_ical for a way to send
78 calendar entries.
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80 -g a group-workspace will be created, that is a workspace that can
81 be seen by other members of current group with ws_list -g and
82 the workspace itself is created group readable.
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87 create a workspace for 10 days:
88 ws_allocate myworkspace 10
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92 ~/.ws_user.conf can contain an email address to send reminders to, if
93 no -m option is used.
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96 It has the form
97 mail: user@domain
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101 Written by Holger Berger
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105 ws_release, ws_list, ws_find, ws_restore, ws_send_ical
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109USER COMMANDS March 2013 ws_allocate(1)