[Mageia-sysadm] Clearifying questions

[Buchan Milne]

On Monday, 17 September 2012 03:45:58 Joerg Stephan wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> nice topics, all of them
> 
> 1. Topic: Virtual Machines
> What do we use? xen/kwm/vmware?

KVM.

> I already done automatic setups for xen
> machines on our side. I could take a look.

At $dayjob, we have been running Xen for years as well.

However, we need a well-defined problem statement, and we should look at 
current best-of-breed open-source tools to see if they satisfy our 
requirements.

The current two IMHO are:
-ovirt (basis for RHEV)
-openstack

There are also some others, but IMHO these have the most developer mindshare 
...

For other purposes, I have started packaging openstack, but got stuck at 
febootstrap (and some ocaml dependencies). I can provide some more detail, 
but, unfortunately these days I am quite pressed for time.

> Could be hart whitout accessing
> the machines.

Well, we need a design first, software to be packaged, configurations in 
puppet etc. first, before any access is required.

> 2. Topic sympa emails
> maybe we could maniulate the databases. For we use LDAP shouldnt be the
> problem if both systems can interact. 

The question is where to trigger what update based on what action.

We can build all sorts of clever functionality into identity (btw., I am the 
original author). I would prefer if such functionality could be plugin-based.

Alternatively, we could handle this all at the LDAP level (e.g. provide for 
non-identity changes on LDAP), such as by a script that subscribes to changes 
on LDAP via syncrepl, and pushes changes to various systems as appropriate. I 
have a number of scripts in production at $dayjob (e.g. one 
creates/modifies/deletes accounts on a web hosting control panel). I have some 
skeleton code that may be appropriate, but I don't currently have too much 
time to update this code, again it should probably be more modular or allow 
plugins or modules that can operate on specific changes.

> 3. On the Sysadmin side
> Backups could be done via bacula.

We should probably look at all viable alternatives. For example, any reason 
not to use amanda? Or rsnapshot?

> i could set that up. Would be easy to
> integrate that in puppet for the clients. Needs talking about schedule for
> incremental and full backups. And i would need access to a backup server.
> 
> 4. This ruby puppet

What is the problem, that we need to make changes?

> I used to not running an puppetd on the none masters. I use a ssh script via
> public_key which rtuns the agent on the system when i need it. Its
> scripted. So after i made changes to puppet i trigger the script and let
> the client run.
> 
> 5. I made a copy of the puppet svn and will have a closer look this evening.
> 
> Kind regards
> ________________________________
> From: nicolas vigier <boklm at mars-attacks.org>
> To: Mageia Sysadmin discussions <mageia-sysadm at mageia.org>
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 11:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [Mageia-sysadm] Clearifying questions
> 
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2012, Joerg Stephan wrote:
> > Good morning @All,
> > 
> > i have some questions:
> > 
> > 1. Who can grant me access to the systems?
> 
> We cannot give root access to the servers to anybody who asks. We need
> to trust people who get root access, so we need to know them very well,
> for a long time, and we need some proof that they will be helpful in
> the team and that they know what they are doing, for instance by seeing
> that they have made useful contributions to Mageia in the past.
> 
> However there are many areas where it's possible to help without having
> root access. For instance :
> - we need to find a solution so that email changed on
>   identity.mageia.org is automatically changed on sympa mailing lists.
>   This require making some changes to identity and/or sympa.
> - we need to make mirrorlist redundant, for instance by allowing
>   generation of static files by MGA::Mirrors, so that we can copy the
>   files on a 2nd server, and changing urpmi to be able to use 2 servers
> - we need to work on some tools to manage virtual machines creations /
>   deletions by contributors on a server, to allow them to use test VMs
> - there is a lot of bugfix or improvements to be made on build system
>   tools
> 
> > 2. Do we have a Todo list? Where can i see current projects of the sysadm
> > team.
> Many bugs are assigned to sysadmin on bugzilla :
> https://bugs.mageia.org/buglist.cgi?cmdtype=dorem&remaction=run&namedcmd=sys
> admin&sharer_id=69
> 
> A few on the wiki :
> https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Category:SysadminTODO
> 
> And others that you can see by following discussions on mailing lists.
> 
> > 3. What is this: /usr/bin/ruby /usr/sbin/puppetd -o --no-daemonize -l
> > syslog i mean, why does rruby start the puppetd (?!?)
> Because puppet is written in ruby.
> 
> > 4. Are there ayn meetings scheduled?
> 
> Not at the moment, but we can schedule one if someone thinks there is
> important topics to discuss.
> 
> > 5. Do we have a system description, like which server does what?
> 
> You can see that in puppet configuration.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mageia-sysadm mailing list
> Mageia-sysadm at mageia.org
> https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-sysadm
> _______________________________________________
> Mageia-sysadm mailing list
> Mageia-sysadm at mageia.org
> https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-sysadm
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </pipermail/mageia-sysadm/attachments/20120918/ca874640/attachment-0001.html>