[tahoe-dev] [tahoe-lafs] #1311: user of tahoe client thinks "storage=true" means that their client can use storage

[tahoe-lafs]

#1311: user of tahoe client thinks "storage=true" means that their client can use
storage
--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  zooko               |           Owner:           
     Type:  defect              |          Status:  new      
 Priority:  major               |       Milestone:  undecided
Component:  code-nodeadmin      |         Version:  1.8.1    
 Keywords:  usability defaults  |   Launchpad Bug:           
--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------
 My wife (who, by the way, is super smart and knowledgeable) is setting up
 a tahoe client. From her perspective what she is doing has nothing to do
 with servers. She may or may not be aware that the same source code and
 configuration file is used for servers as is used for clients. In any case
 her only goal was to set up a client so she would have been justified in
 skipping over any documentation that appeared to be about setting up
 servers.

 So, when she was editing {{{tahoe.cfg}}}, she saw {{{helper=False}}} and
 {{{storage=False}}} and, since she thought that she was configuring a
 client, she thought she ought to turn those two settings ''on'', because
 the only interpretation of those settings was whether this client can
 ''use'' those services.

 Possible fix would be to add comments in the default {{{tahoe.cfg}}} file,
 such as a line next to {{{helper=False}}} saying {{{# Shall this node run
 a helper service that clients can use?}}}. Also, maybe big visible
 separators delineating which configuration options are about clients and
 which are about servers.

 A larger fix might be to split the client-related and server-related
 configuration into two separate files, possibly named
 {{{~/.tahoe/client.cfg}}} and {{{~/.tahoe/server.cfg}}}.

 (Tahoe-LAFS grew out of the P2P tradition and we often thought of a single
 "node" performing both client and server behavior. But in practice
 nowadays that is a very rare way to use it. Note that I'm not proposing
 that we make it impossible for a single node to do both! I'm only
 proposing that the terminology, docs, and configuration files assume that
 one node is going to perform only one of those roles, the better to match
 user assumptions and common usage.)

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1311>
tahoe-lafs <http://tahoe-lafs.org>
secure decentralized storage