gnodes - Strange Visitors from Another Planet or simply
            -------------------------------------------------------
                     Something DEC Forgot to Tell Us About
                     -------------------------------------

Newflash:  "Cannot run nn.  Out of gnodes".

What is a gnode?  What purpose does it serve?  Why was it created?  Does it go
well with parsley?  Read on and find out....

A gnode is, like a sliding paff gongbudger and a tribble tiddy, one of those
things you never even know exists until you run out of them.  This recently
happened to compsci, when we ran out of gnodes.

1641% df -i

Filesystem   Total    kbytes   kbytes   %     inodes   inodes   %
node         kbytes   used     free     used  used     free     used Mounted on
/dev/rz3a      34575   22715    8403    73%     1074   15054     7%  /
/dev/rz4c     303582  257382   15842    94%     9257  144343     6%  /usr
/dev/rz5c      95751   70232   15944    81%     1580   45460     3%  /var
cs18-2:/var/   63343   23282   33727    41%        0       0     0%  /var/spool/mail
cs18-2:/user 2035373  934951  896885    51%        0       0     0%  /users/staff
cs18-2:/user  945727  752377  146064    84%        0       0     0%  /users/studs/grad
cs18-2:/user  945726  216941  634213    25%        0       0     0%  /users/studs/ugrad
cs18-2:/var/  554030  454062   72267    86%        0       0     0%  /usr/news
cs18-2:/loca  945727  851277   47164    95%        0       0     0%  /local
cs18-2:/mnt   945726  886113   12327    99%        0       0     0%  /mnt

From a cursory examination of the above information, it is obvious to even the
most inexperienced Unix user that someone has stolen all the inodes.


                        NOBODY LEAVES ZER ROOM!!!


An equally cursory examination will also reveal that *something* is taking up
space on this zero-inode filesystem.

    doo dee do-do doo dee do-do  Do not adjust your XTerms  doo dee do-do

Maybe this space is allocated using ..... the sinister gnode!

1792% man -k gnode
No manual entry matching 'gnode'.

It appears that the gnode, like 95% of AIX, is an undocumented extra.

Installed by DEC to keep its programmers amused, the gnode is in fact the GNU
version of the inode, taking up fifteen times as much space, four times as much
memory, and with an optional side order of copyleft notices attached.

    "Does anyone want to run down to DEKA to pick up a packet of gnodes?"

gnodes are in fact a clever licensing scheme by DEC.  Once your gnode quota is
used up, the system grinds to a halt (usually during the final printing run of
everyone's "Design and Analysis of Compilers" final assignment worth 25% of the
years total marks (assignment title: "Writing an object-oriented COBOL compiler
in Eiffel").

    printf( "Panic: Out of %cnodes\n", ( rand() % 26 ) + 'a' );

It appears that, when noone was looking, a wild horde of DEC field circus
engineers descended on our poor fileserver and upgraded all our inodes to
gnodes, WITHOUT TELLING THE USERS (so there *was* a reason for the Ultrix 4.3
upgrade apart from keeping the technicians amused after all).

What can be done about this sudden gnode shortage?  The answer is not:

    while (1) do
        nn
    done

in an attempt to get any poor gnodes which may still be floating around:

    "Look, there's an unused gnode.

           !! WHAM !!

     nn: Out of gnodes"

Since it will be at least another fortnight before the next gnode harvest
ripens in Esperanto (the only country which has, until now, managed to grow
them), and since they are in such high demand, it is recommended that users try
to source their own gnodes via independant retailers, until the department can
provide more.

For more information, contact our service bureau in Esperanto:

    gnode-info@eniac.sys.ep