MPU Meeting Tuesday 13th September 2011

AFS automation project

Nothing happened.

LCFG Server Refactoring

Nothing happened.

Wake on LAN

Chris's new project will be starting soon.

Install Scripts

Chris is writing the report.

Simple KVM Service

The new network component code is now live, but the schema has not yet been changed.

Alastair has been experimenting with suspending and resuming guests. When resuming a guest its clock will obviously be wrong but ntp does not pick up on this and correct it. Is there a KVM facility to correct clocks after resume? KVM doesn't appear to provide a resume hook. Unless there's a better solution, we'll need a daemon which looks for time changes and corrects them using "ntpdate".

Alastair has been writing a "create machine" script using Template Toolkit. The user of the script will specify the desired number of CPUs, amount of memory and OS.

It would be an advantage to be able to use northern for this project so Chris will tackle its BIOS upgrade and CD drive problem.

Miscellaneous Development

ATI Graphics cards

Support has been added for using the proprietary AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx graphics driver (use the dice/options/video_ati_catalyst.h LCFG header). This is enabled on all the HP DC7900 machines which have ATI cards using the DICE_OPTIONS_VIDEO_ATI macro. If the on-board intel card is being used instead then the macro will have to be removed. The package builds a kernel module so a reboot is required to enable the new driver.

Ultra-slim HP DC7900

A separate LCFG header (dice/hw/hp_dc7900_usdt.h) has been added for the ultra-slim HP DC7900 desktop machines as they are not functionally identical to the, larger, small-form-factor version. Most of the LCFG profiles have already been updated, as this mainly affects MDP profiles, the remainder will be done after the next stable release.

OpenAFS 1.6.0

The first full release of OpenAFS 1.6.0 has been made. The plan is to make this the default on SL6. Initially it will just be on all SL6 "develop" machines for testing. We need to move fully to 1.6 soon as supporting 1.4 and 1.6 doubles the building required: each AFS/kernel version pair needs its own kernel module build.

Perl AFS module

Simon and Stephen have worked out how to make the Perl AFS module buildable for 64 bit. Simon has submitted a patch to the OpenAFS build system to make the build process generate more shared libraries rather than static ones. The patch will appear in OpenAFS 1.6.1 - however that won't be out for several months. Simon's patches to the AFS perl module will also be necessary.

fstab

Alastair's fstab component enhancements are now in place. GPT and mount-by-UUID are now the default on SL6.

Lightweight SL6 DNS zone transfer install problem

Installs of lightweight SL6 are failing because the initial DNS zone transfer doesn't complete before the installbase reboots, leaving the client component non-functional afterwards. George and Alastair are working on a solution.

Operational

SL6 Multipath

This can't be investigated until we have an isolated FC testbed.

BIOS Settings

Alastair asked Graham Newton to change the smartd and AHCI settings and Graham has sent the changes on to the SelectPC group.

Server Upgrade Programme

We need to think up a three year programme (Oct 11 to Sep 14) of MPU server hardware upgrades.

This Week

• Alastair
  • Review package section of DR
  • Document BIOS settings for USU
  • Discuss DNS problem for installs with George
  • KVM project - machine creator script and docs
  • circle - Report memory problem
  • bakerloo - Investigate RAID battery issue
  • Discuss with Tim - when need Stephen for ISS project
  • Think about 3 yr equipment spending profile

• Chris
  • Review MPUBackupSummary
  • Polish off the submit project
  • install scripts project report
  • Upgrade northern BIOS
  • PDP ?
  • Think about 3 yr equipment spending profile

• Gordon
  • alternatives component

• Stephen
  • LCFG refactoring project
  • Hols
  • PDP ?
  • Think about 3 yr equipment spending profile

-- AlastairScobie 13 Sep 2011, ChrisCooke 14 Sep 2011.