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Re: Re: managing version 6 in a locked-down environment

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg78520] Re: [mg78452] Re: managing version 6 in a locked-down environment
  • From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
  • Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 05:39:01 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
  • References: <f65a91$98h$1@smc.vnet.net> <200707021048.GAA17936@smc.vnet.net>
  • Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu

I agree, and for the reasons stated, that in a multi-user environment 
such as I described in my original posting (student lab), having paclets 
saved in $UserBaseDirectory is not a satisfactory solution.

Albert wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>> As long as you allow writing to $UserBaseDirectory, pretty much any variant of 
>> the system you're proposing should work fine.
>>
>> All of the paclet updates in shipping systems are saved in $UserBaseDirectory, 
>> and a mapping system is in place to use the $UserBaseDirectory versions of these 
>> files in preference to the ones in the installation directory.  If 
>> $UserBaseDirectory is wiped clean, then the system will start downloading 
>> updates from scratch.  Otherwise, the updates will be preserved, even if 
>> Mathematica is reinstalled.  Nothing is ever overwritten in the installation
>> directory.
> 
> Is there any means to explicitly control where these automatically 
> downloaded files will go? I think that this would be what I would want 
> if I'd be managing a machine where many different users use Mathematica. 
> At least after I found that I am wasting backup space and time for the 
> paclet data which resides as an identical copy in each users home 
> directory and would even be updated automatically just in case. Since in 
> such an environment the users home directories most probably will be 
> served over the local area network, such a setup will also add 
> unnecessary traffic and delays (not mainly for the download, but each 
> time one of the paclets is called...). Or am I misunderstandig how all 
> this works?
> 
>> Mathematica has long been designed to work well on systems which have the 
>> installation directory totally locked down.  

-- 
Murray Eisenberg                     murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower      phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts                413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street            fax   413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305


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