MPU Meeting Tuesday 11th October 2011

AFS automation project

No activity.

LCFG Server Refactoring

No activity.

Wake on LAN

Chris has just started looking at this. Stephen and Alastair suggested first checking out James' software.

Install Scripts for Self-Managed Machines

Chris has put together a draft report.

Submit

is now finished; Chris will write the final report.

Simple KVM Service

• It now has a script which can change the boot order.
• Northern is now running SL6.
• Northern will be needed for SL6 fibre testing so the first KVM service will go on to a downtown machine instead.

MPU Server Upgrades

• As of this week's release SL6 servers now use disk-layout.h. Stephen has timed the package cache server upgrades to take advantage of this so that split will be upgraded towards the end of this week and schiff will be done some time next week.
• SL6 Server partitioning will now use an automatic swap size algorithm, similar to Redhat's.
• Another consequence of the disk-layout.h change is that SL6 servers will get a 40GB root partition. This is not appropriate for small servers such as those on virtual machines, so for such machines there is a new small-server.h to be used in place of server.h. Machines using small-server.h will get a 10GB root partition, which should be plenty, since a minimal server currently just has about 2GB worth of files in root.

Misc Development

Improved 790 SL6 sleep fix

Dell 790s running SL6 and connected to the old style of monitor (like those in the flip desks) with a Digital cable are unable to detect their monitor properly, making them unusable after waking from sleep. For the time being Chris has put in a tidier workaround for this, in the form of an extra sleep test which greps /var/log/Xorg.0.log for both Digital Display Input and Max Image Size \[cm\]: horiz.: 36  vert.: 29. Hopefully RHEL 6.2β will have a version of X which fixes this problem. Alastair will check.

Installroot improvements

Alastair has incorporated a number of suggested fixes into the installroot.

SL5 PXE fixed

SL5 PXE installs broke a wee while ago. Stephen worked out that some configuration had been inadvertently deleted; restoring it fixed the problem.

HS200 RAID software

Alastair has found some software which controls the Dell low end HS200 RAID controller. Chris will look into adding this to hwmon. Alastair and Chris will discuss RAID monitoring tools.

Operational

OpenAFS 1.6.1

This will be released imminently - sooner than expected. Upgrading SL6 to use it will be a priority as it contains the fixes for the perl AFS module.

SL6 fibre testing

Alastair is setting up a separate fibrechannel test fabric at KB using northern, the SATAboy (once Craig has finished with it) and a fibre switch which Alastair will take to KB.

This Week

• Alastair
  • Read Chris's install scripts report
  • Identify version of X in Redhat 6.2 beta
  • Discuss RAID monitoring tools with Chris
  • Try fibre with northern and sataboy at KB on separate FC fabric, once sataboy free
  • KVM project - documentation
  • Add lvm packages to installroot and installbase, but not component? - Discuss with Matthew
  • Chase George re solution for DNS problem (wrt small servers)
  • Look at MPUBackupSummary
  • Document BIOS settings for USU
  • Think about 3 yr equipment spending profile

• Chris
  • WOL project - look at James's component
  • Discuss RAID monitoring tools with Alastair
  • Think about 3 yr equipment spending profile
  • PDP

• Gordon
  • Read Chris's install scripts report
  • Student Lab availability

• Stephen
  • Read Chris's install scripts report
  • Think about 3 yr equipment spending profile
  • SL6 server - upgrading split
  • ssh servers

-- AlastairScobie - 11 Oct 2011