From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jul 31 18:01:36 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0BEBA16A4DA for ; Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:01:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cperciva@freebsd.org) Received: from pd2mo2so.prod.shaw.ca (shawidc-mo1.cg.shawcable.net [24.71.223.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A87643D45 for ; Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:01:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cperciva@freebsd.org) Received: from pd4mr8so.prod.shaw.ca (pd4mr8so-qfe3.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.101]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0J3A00DUE4Q3A970@l-daemon> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:01:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pn2ml8so.prod.shaw.ca ([10.0.121.152]) by pd4mr8so.prod.shaw.ca (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0J3A00FXA4Q2RS90@pd4mr8so.prod.shaw.ca> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:01:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from hexahedron.daemonology.net ([24.82.18.31]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with SMTP id <0J3A00FYB4Q2CYG0@l-daemon> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:01:14 -0600 (MDT) Received: (qmail 2940 invoked from network); Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:01:14 +0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?127.0.0.1?) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:01:14 +0000 Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:01:13 -0700 From: Colin Percival In-reply-to: <44CDE02F.4090604@dial.pipex.com> To: Alex Zbyslaw Message-id: <44CE4569.1010300@freebsd.org> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 References: <20060728164526.E27679@ganymede.hub.org> <87slklj9hu.fsf@photon.homelinux.org> <20060729021007.F27679@ganymede.hub.org> <44CD41EC.6030605@freebsd.org> <20060730233839.I27679@ganymede.hub.org> <44CDAA98.3030702@freebsd.org> <44CDE02F.4090604@dial.pipex.com> User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (X11/20060416) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:01:36 -0000 Alex Zbyslaw wrote: > Counting portsnap and cvsup accesses is non-intrusive - i.e. nothing > sent from local host - will count systems from any version of FreeBSD, > but will never count everything because sites with multiple hosts may > easily have local propagation mechanisms. But you will get an order of > magnitude. However, how do you deal with systems with variable IPs? For the portsnap usage statistics, I'm measuring how many days of updates were downloaded per day. In the long run this will be equal to the number of systems using portsnap, whether they update daily or monthly, and whether they have a fixed IP address or a different IP address every time. The only problem I've seen with this method is that it is rather sensitive to holidays: There is a dip in measured portsnap usage in late December, folllowed by a sharp spike in early January before the measured usage returns to normal, since many systems were not being updated over the Christmas holiday, and then suddenly needed to "catch up" in early January (and since they were downloading several weeks of updates, they each looked like several machines). Colin Percival