MPU Meeting Monday 26th March 2007

LCFG website

Nothing has happened on this recently, mainly due to Stephen going to the UKUUG Spring conference.

Solaris Improvement Project

Chris is going to look at the Solaris package submission script to see if it can be altered to submit to pezenas. The old repository can then be kept synchronized with the new one via an automatic rsync process.

Chris had reviewed and explained the profile differences of ouroboros and salamander to Craig. Still waiting for a response as to when they will be converted over to the new headers.

FC5 Upgrade

Nothing happened for the FC5 upgrade. We are still waiting for a few remaining console servers to be upgraded by other units.

FC6 Project

The first testing/stable fc6 release cycle will happen next week. At that point CD installs will be considered as fully supported. PXE installs will be considered as fully supported from the following week once Stephen has generated new kernel images and install roots based on the first stable release.

To ensure that the grub config file does not get incorrectly altered when fedora kernels are upgraded Alastair will alter updaterpms to call the grub component configure method after the same is done for the kernel component.

Stephen will arrange a plan of hardware testing that Carol can carry out so that we can get the hardware support matrix for fc6 filled out as soon as possible.

Stephen will complete work this week on the kernels for DICE and the install process.

Operational

Header metadata

Stephen is going to implement the metadata necessary to generate the hardware matrix this week.

Upgrade achilles services

This has been handed off to the Services Unit and they have completed the upgrade.

LCFG wiki and bugzilla

Chris has been looking into this but has had some problems configuring the apache authentication/authorization. Alastair will help Chris look into finding a solution.

New kernel

A new kernel and openafs are in this week's testing release. If all goes well with testing this will be in the stable release and all the stable machines will need rebooting sometime after Thursday afternoon.

LCFG tutorial

We now have a date for the event - Wednesday 13th June. Chris will talk to Marije this week about catering. It was agreed that payment would be taken on the day. We need to get details of the flyer to UKUUG to be sent out with their next newsletter, also need to find out if they want it photo-ready or just the information. Need to set minimum and maximum numbers, it was agreed that these would be 6 and 20 respectively.

Minimal LCFG

Stephen has been doing some work on producing "minimal" LCFG. This is the essential packages and scripts necessary to have a machine running with its own server and client and just the file component. The packages could then be distributed and also we could create a vmware image which we can use for the LCFG workshop. This could also be distributed publically for external users to use for evaluation purposes.

LCFG development

A meeting is planned for some point soon (probably in May) to discuss any current problems with LCFG. The idea is to have a brainstorming session which can produce a list of short, medium and long term goals for the project. These can then be prioritised in terms of both necessity and difficulty and a work plan can be produced which can be split down into separate projects.

Rewrite Components in Perl

It was agreed that it is desirable to convert all our LCFG components over to Perl at some point. As a first step towards this Chris is going to look at converting lcfg-xinetd.

This Week

Alastair will:

• Add personal development topics to the wiki
• Close the fc5 64bit project
• Deal with the Simon King RT ticket
• Talk to G. Duckett about buying MacOSX Leopard
• Create a project stub for reworking the install process
• Test the vmware export support on Windows

Chris will:

• LCFG Workshop
• Chase the move to the new headers of ouroboros and salamander
• Look at LCFG manual generator
• Look into Solaris install process
• Add fc6 to our release management scripts
• Continue tidying office
• Look at converting the xinetd LCFG component to perl

Stephen will:

• Kernels for fc6
• Personal development projects
• Hardware header metadata

-- StephenQuinney - 28 Mar 2007