[rescue] autoshutdown/noautoshtdown in Solaris 8

[Greg]

> How about:
> 
> pkgrm SUNWpmr SUNWpmu
>
> or just not install them in the first place?  That way they can't be 
> accidently re-enabled by a patch or some other sysadmin.

Exactly.  If you don't want it there then don't install it.  But don't hack
it in a non-obvious way (everyone piped up with their own way of
deactivating rc scripts, that should've been a clue) when there are
alternatives available that are guaranteed to have the desired effect.

> Power managment for Unix systems is about as useful as an ashtray on a 
> motorbike.

<soapbox>

Now that's a particularly silly blanket statement.  Power management does
not mean shutting down a machine, it means controlling power consumption.
There's nothing wrong with shutting down unused disk drives, telling
monitors to go into power-saving mode, turning off power to the framebuffer
when the monitor is in power-saving mode, running the processors at
fractional speeds (full-speed, 1/2, 1/32 for some Sun machines; full-speed,
1/2, 1/6 for others) when they're idle, and other power management
capabilities of today's Unix machines.  All dramatically reduce the power
consumption (and the heat generation!) of the machine without affecting its
availability.

My household server has two internal disks, only one is ever used at a time
(I use LiveUpgrade to upgrade the OS while the machine is running and so I
alternate using each disk as the root disk) so having the unused disk spun
down all of the time saves power and heat.  The server also is idle much of
the day (all true Unix users are night owls, right?) so the processor
automatically goes to 1/2 speed then 1/6 speed when it's idle and instantly
returns to full speed when the machine has work to do.  None of that limits
its ability to be a server.  I do recommend, however, configuring it not to
spin down disks that are being exported to other machines, waiting for them
to spin up can be an annoyance.

I'm also convinced that the very same Solaris power management software on
my SPARCbook (a Unix system!) is extremely useful, _especially_ when running
on batteries.  You obviously don't run Unix on a laptop if you feel power 
management is useless for Unix systems.

</soapbox>

-greg