Server Team 20080729 meeting minutes

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Clamav and spamassassin in main

ScottK mentioned that there are a couple of MIR left to be written in order to get clamav and spamassassin into main in time for Intrepid. Help is more than welcomed to make this happen. The list can be found in the wiki page.

Boot Support for Degraded RAID

kirkland’s patches to mdadm and initramfs-tools have been uploaded. He’s also updated the wiki page with testing instructions.

ACTION: kirkland to write a blog post about testing booting from a degraded raid array.

Review ServerGuide for Intrepid

sommer updated some sections of the Server Guide as listed on the wiki page. He will mark those that require a review. mathiaz updated the Server Team knowledge base with instructions to checkout the guide and start working on it.

Anyone interested in helping out should branch the server guide and send their review as a bzr branch.

Migrate new installs and upgrades of client and server packages to use SSL v3 or TLS

ivoks mentioned that openssl in intrepid is compiled without support for sslv2.

Add ’status’ action to server init scripts

kirkland mentioned that a lot of work has been done in that area. Patches have been created and are waiting for sponsoring. mathiaz will take a shot at them.

james_w wondered if the patches had been sent to Debian and warned about the process to follow when filing a lot of bugs in Debian. kirkland and james_w will discuss this issue off-line.

Call for WP testers

nijaba stated he had a bunch of whitepapers he’d like to get feedback on: automated deployment, mysql clustering, redhat cluster. ivoks and sommer volunteered to do some reviews. Anyone interested in reviewing the mysql clustering and automated deployments whitepapers should send an email to nijaba.

Server survey, Intel interested to partner

nijaba reported that Intel was interested in joining the Server survey. A hardware-related question would be added and they would blog about it. No objections were raised. nijaba also added that RedMonk was the analyst firm we would partner with.

ACTION: nijaba to write up a question related to hw and submit it for review to the rest of the server team.

RAILS integration

NeilW gave a quick summary of the ruby problem: the current Rubygems package doesn’t place gem installed binaries on the path. So the likes of Capistrano just doesn’t work. He’s been talking with the Debian maintainer and came up with different solutions.

He also uploaded a new version of mod_passenger to REVU. mathiaz will have a look at it.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, August 5th at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

Adding a status action to init scripts

Surely if you have administered a Linux server, you have used the scripts in /etc/init.d/ to start, stop, and restart system services. What about the status action to determine if a given service is up and running?

The Ubuntu Server team has initiated a concentrated effort to add status actions to the most commonly used init scripts. We’re recruiting current and aspiring Ubuntu developers to help patch these init scripts. Some Unix shell programming and basic Debian packaging skills are all that is required.

Basically, you need to do:

1. grab the source
2. add two lines to the service’s init script
3. add a dependency in the control file
4. create a changelog entry
5. post a debdiff to a Launchpad bug.

There is detailed step-by-step checklist for creating and submitting such packages on the wiki page.

The Linux Standard Base 3.1 has a specification for init scripts actions. A simple function has been added to the LSB base library /lib/lsb/init-functions. This shell function, status_of_proc(), can be used in most init scripts to report status.

The list of init scripts that need work is also maintained in the wiki page. Join us in IRC at #ubuntu-server if you are interested in helping!

Server Team 20080722 meeting minutes

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Add ’status’ action to server init scripts

kirkland generated a list of init scripts that could have a status action added to them. The wiki page also outlines how to add a status action and file a bug in LP to ask for inclusion in the relevant package.

Anyone interested in helping out should head to the wiki page.

Clamav and spamassassin in main

ScottK reminded that there are a couple of MIRs that still need to be written before clamav and spamassassin can be included into main. The wiki page tracks all the remaining packages that should have a MIR written for. ScottK can be contacted to get an initial review of the MIR. ivoks and sommer volunteered to write some of the MIRs.

Rapache presentation and discussion

tacone gave an overview of the rapache project emgent and him started after UDS. Rapache is an Apache configurator gui. The goal is to lower the entry barrier for former windows system administrators used to configure IIS with a GUI.

Review ServerGuide for Intrepid

sommer reported that he almost finished a new section about Kerberos. He also asked for a review of the Samba section.

Ubuntu VM builder

soren is still working on the rewrite in python of ubuntu-vm-builder. He is currently adding Xen support. mathiaz asked if there was some documentation available. soren said there wasn’t any – any help in this area is welcomed.

ACTION: soren to write a short README file to help people get started with the new ubuntu-vm-builder.

Migrate openldap configuration to cn=config

mathiaz spent most of his time last week on implementing cn=config support to the openldap package. Both new installs and upgrades are supported. He sent a patch to the Debian maintainers and is waiting for their feedback.

He also plans to look into FreeIPA once the cn=config migration is completed.

Boot Support for Degraded RAID

kirkland has some working code in his ppa. More testing of the mdadm package is welcome.

ACTION: kirkland to update the wiki page BootDegradedRaid with some testing instructions.

RAILS integration

macd reported that mod_rails has been packaged and uploaded to REVU. mathiaz reviewed it and sent his feedback to Neil (the packager). Overall it looks good.

macd also mentioned the discussions he’s having with the Debian maintainers for ruby/rubygems that is taking place in bug 145267. There was some discussion about the issue which boils down to a PATH issue. The debian gems and the source installed gems don’t end up in the same place. Rails apps looks in a specific place and rails isn’t capable of looking in more than one place. soren, macd and persia discussed the path issue and deferred it to #ubuntu-server after the meeting.

Migrate new installs and upgrades of client and server packages to use SSL v3 or TLS

ivoks prepared patches for a couple of packages to disable sslv2 in their configuration. He also sent an email on ubuntu-devel about disabling sslv2 directly in the openssl package. Discussion is ongoing, with a proposal to create an openssl-sslv2 package in universe that would be built with sslv2 enabled.

ACTION: ivoks to prepare a patch for the openssl package to disable sslv2.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, July 29th at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

Server Team 20080715 meeting minutes

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Add ’status’ action to server init scripts

kirkland created a wiki page to keep track of the different packages that should implement a status action in their init script. He also added a recipe explaining how to implement a status action in an init script.

ACTION: kirkland to update the init script wiki page with a list of packages that should be fixed.

Augeas

nxvl reported that the augeas package was published in the ubuntu archive. It was also accepted in Debian. The next step is to write more lenses. nxvl setup a wiki page to keep track of the lenses writing effort.

He also looked into the Model:Config project. He plans to package it once Augeas is supported.

Encrypted ~/Private Directory in Each User’s Home

kirkland reported that most of the MIRs had been written. He is also using an auth-client-config profile to setup the pam configuration correctly. He updated the testing instructions and is looking for more testers.

Migrate new installs and upgrades of client and server packages to use SSL v3 or TLS

ivoks made a list of packages that need their configuration updated. He added it to the wiki page.

There was some discussion about dropping support for sslv2 in the openssl package, rather than modifying each package. mathiaz suggested that it may be worth having a session about this proposal during next UDS or at least start a conversation on the ubuntu-devel mailing list.

Integration of SASL and Postfix

ivoks looked briefly into it: since postfix is jailed, giving access to the sasl daemon socket is the main issue (which is the same problem with Dovecot SASL).

ACTION: ivoks to discuss cyrus socket integration with lamont.

Review ServerGuide for Intrepid

sommer updated the samba section in the Ubuntu Server Guide. mathiaz looked into creating a bzr branch of the server guide after discussing with LaserJock about handling translations. He is still working on figuring out a simple workflow for new contributors.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, July 22nd at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

Server Team 20080708 meeting minutes

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Updated Server Team Roadmap

mathiaz updated the Server Team Roadmap with a list of specs targeted for Intrepid. He reminded everyone to add missing blueprints and update existing ones.

ACTION: kirkland to update the lsb section on the roadmap.

ACTION: nxvl to add a section about augeas.

Ubuntu Server Guide bzr branch

mathiaz looked into splitting the Ubuntu server guide into its own bzr branch in order to make it easier and faster for new contributors to submit updates. He asked how translations were integrated in the package. LaserJock gave some details. The discussion was defer to #ubuntu-server after the meeting.

Migrate openldap configuration to cn=config

mathiaz made some progress on supporting the config backend in the openldap package. He scheduled some time next week with slangasek to talk about his changes.

Encrypted ~/Private Directory in Each User’s Home

kirkland reported that this spec is in great shape for intrepid. Two modifications to /etc/pam.d/common-auth and /etc/pam.d/common-session still need to be done manually.

ACTION: kirkland to update the testing instructions in the Spec and send an email out to the server mailing list about ecrypts fs.

ACTION: kirkland to ask for feedback on how to add the pam_ecryptfs module to the pam stack.

Migrate new installs and upgrades of client and server packages to use SSL v3 or TLS

ivoks started to make a list of services that need their configuration updated to provide SSL v3/TLS by default.

ACTION: ivoks to update the MigrateOffSSL2 wiki page with a list of services that needs to be checked and fixed.

Integration of Dovecot SASL and Postfix

mathiaz noted that there are currently two sasl implementations in main: cyrus and dovecot. While writing one of his spec, he found that most of the services in main use the Cyrus SASL implementation – only two services (exim and postfix) support the dovecot implementation. He wondered why use the dovecot implementation instead of cyrus.

ACTION: ivoks to evaluate what needs to be done for cyrus sasl/postfix integration.

ACTION: mathiaz to update the Roadmap wrt postfix sasl integration.

Ubuntu Manpage Repository

elmo has agreed to provide hosting for it. The code is awaiting kees’ security audit. There’s a Launchpad project if anyone else wants to review it.

kirkland may add the dman command line which provides instant access from a command line to any man page in any Ubuntu release dapper – intrepid, main/universe/multiverse/restricted. This shell script can be found in the same LP project as the repository code.

Call for user experiences on WBEM/CIM Servers

Koon has been investigating options for integrating a WBEM/CIM server in Ubuntu server. He was wondering if anyone in the team had any experience to share (OpenWBEM, SBLIM, OpenPegasus, others ). nealmcb offered to forward Koon’s requests and questions to folks that should know more about this subject.

Intrepid alpha 2

mathiaz reminded that Alpha 2 is targeted for Thursday and that there is a soft freeze in effect. This also means that some -server isos will require testing in the next days. As usual coordination takes place in #ubuntu-testing and on the Iso testing tracker.

sommer wondered if the isos were working with kvm. nijaba reported that soren said he would upload a patch to fix that shortly. mathiaz added that he successfully booted an intrepid guest with the latest kernel upload (-3), but that the system would produce a lot of oopses.

Augeas almost in Intrepid

nxvl reported that his augeas package had been uploaded to the archive and was waiting for a review by an archive admin. The next step is to write more lenses for the services that we’d like to support: he created such a list and is looking for help to write lenses.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, July 15th at 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.