LIMITS-a system for UNIX resource administration

Abstract

The UNIX operating system, despite its emergence as a standard for supercomputer systems, lacks effective support for multiuser resource administration. The design and implementation of a decentralised resource administration system uniformly realisable across the wide variety of UNIX dialects presents a number of problems. Among these problems are potential violations of the UNIX design philosophy, preservation of the user process environment and adherence to industry standards. A research project to design and develop a UNIX resource administration system built upon the “Fair Share” scheduler, Share, has been undertaken at Softway with the support of the Australian Government. This project has yielded a resource administration and control system called Limits and further research is being undertaken on its extension to networks supporting shared resources.