MPU Meeting Tuesday 7th April 2015

systemd

Finished.

SL7

Stephen will flesh out the remaining items in the final report, Chris will reorganise the items according to the type of activity.

Alastair has merged the versions of the mkinitramfs tool so that the same version works on both SL6 and SL7. It now uses sysinfo to decide how to create the installer.

Stephen has documented how to run daily tasks on LCFG managed machines.

The systemd config for auditd has been fixed to work with the way the LCFG component manages the rules file.

We need to make a start on the release notes for users, this will have to be done in conjunction with RAT. The most appropriate place for the release notes is on computing.help

At some point we should revisit the systemd logging level, it is currently at INFO which might be too high. It's useful for now as it helps with debugging any problems we encounter.

LCFG Client v4

Stephen has been reading through the code he developed last year. He gave a review of how the profile is parsed and asked for suggestions on the best approach.

Inventory

Chris has begun familiarising himself with the orders file format. It appears that we should be able to drop the intermediate XML format. Chris will read through all the notes Alastair wrote last year on the project home page.

Chris will talk to IS about how to get MAC addresses for SelectPC machines automatically from their records. It would be useful to know how IS process the list for their own needs.

Miscellaneous Development

At the LCFG Deployers meeting there was some discussion on how the file component could be improved. Stephen and Kenny had discovered the list of desirable features and improvements has never been written down. Stephen made a page on the LCFG wiki which was populated with ideas from a talk Faye gave at the LCFG Users Day in 2011 on the xattr component.

Alastair has been looking at collecting usage data for the KVM servers and making it readily available on the web. This is being done via the ordershost database. This should help COs select the "best" server for a new VM.

Operational

rx/tx offload

The script which disabled rx/tx offload for virtualbox has been changed to the delete type so that it will be removed. At some point we should remove the resources entirely.

SL6 reboot hang

Alastair looked at the SL6 reboot hangs. It might be related to use of openafs.

dmesg restrict

Stephen has restricted access to dmesg on the external access servers.

SL6 kernel and openafs updates

We need to think about rolling out upgrades to the SL6 kernel and openafs for DICE machines.

DR server

Stephen and Chris have checked the spec for the new DR server. Alastair is now waiting for a quote.

This Week

This week

• Alastair
  • EL7 project
    • Try a DIYDICE SL6_64 install
  • Inventory project
    • reload into brain
  • RT 65774 - try two identical monitors on my machineIainR has two identical monitors on his SL6 box and doesn't encounter the problem
  • Need to remove default bridge from kvmtool create
  • Consider more cores as default for KVM guests
  • Look at KVM server loading
  • Schedule firmware upgrade for DS3254
  • Check scans - computing.help loads of high impact/high likely. (devproj and www.lcfg.org are ok)
    • Discuss with Neil
    • Look at creating another similar computing.help server and add in extra modules to tickle the problem
  • Look at SL6 KVM guest reboot hangs - tried reboot of brent and hjaelpe (both have local homedir) with no problems, but zipvm1 (AFS homedir, virtualbox) did hang for a couple of minutes
  • Read KVM enhancement project proposal - DISCUSS (add here what you wanted to discuss)]
  • Install comodo certificate for computing.help

• Chris
  • EL7
    • FinalProjectReport296 - re-order so that substantive non-standard changes are at top
    • Start populating https://computing.help.inf.ed.ac.uk/sl7 and hand over to RAT etc
  • url shortener
  • Inventory project
    • Read stuff in project home page
    • Ask IS about access to Macaddresses for SelectPCs - how can we automate this
  • Install comodo certificate for wake.inf

• Stephen
  • LCFG client refactor stage 1
    • schedule debrief meeting
  • EL7
    • Flesh out FinalProjectReport296 remaining items
  • Look at 32 bit libraries mock issue (LCFG deployer)
  • Test northern's SAS disks in metropolitan
  • Junk central
  • Think about PD - Interested in ZeroMQ
  • Add extra memory to waterloo (and if those work, order up more memory for hammersmith)
  • Read KVM enhancement project proposal

-- AlastairScobie - 07 Apr 2015