I've noticed recently there have been a number of reservations made from a single IP address. I'm on the fence as to whether or not it should be allowed. On one hand, I understand coworkers sharing the same Internet proxy want to make their own legitimate reservations. But on the other, it could easily be a single jackass creating multiple illegal reservations for himself.

It's simple enough for me to limit reservations by IP address; this is purely a policy decision that needs to be made. Thoughts?

I'd add a limit of some kind per week per IP, particularly if lab time is at a premium. Whether it's a single jackass or a single NAT'd organization, the lab should be available to the widest audience.

Alternately, only enforce the IP limit during time periods that are heavily utilized/always booked.

Hi,

Sorry for that but I just created a thread about the same subject. I wrote:

Stretch,

First of all I'd like to say thank you and congratulate you for the awesome lab you have there (Of course my thank extends to all the contributors as well).

I was checking the schedule for the next few days and just noticed a weird pattern on the reservation of the labs on a few (and some subsequent) days:

Jan 11, 12, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26 and 27 From 12:00 to 14:00 UTC

I was wondering that maybe someone is dumb and selfish enough to create multiple user accounts and, that way, reserve the lab over and over on convenient times for himself. Of course it's just a guess. Maybe it would be a good idea to check the logs for the past days and, if possible, the log for the reservations to make sure it's just a big coincidence.

Cheers, Vinicius Santos.

I agree with you that maybe co-workers use the same proxy but I'd say it's totally unlikely that they reserve the exact same time...unless they all have only one break during the day at the exact same time =D.

Most of the websites that offer file hosting simply limit the utilization for the same IP address to one and nothing else. In my opinion, at most two concurrent reservations from the same IP should be allowed. Even though they are co-workers, they can start thinking of reserving the lab for some time they are at home. I don't believe everyone that can access the lab from their work has issues to access the lab from home for example.

Vinicius

P.S.: Unfortunately, I was not able to delete my previous post, can you please do that? Thanks!