MPU Meeting Wednesday 10th June 2020

Ubuntu Focal Port of LCFG Platform

Package repositories

Mirroring is now working. We're now mirroring the Ubuntu repositories. We'll probably make a fresh release of Ubuntu repositories each time there's a point release, to cut down on the number of snapshots we need to deal with. Local repositories still need to be sorted out - they'll have to be structured very carefully if they're going to support the permissions we need.

Fully managed packages

There's now a "fully managed" mode for packages! Dependencies which haven't been specified won't be installed, and any package which is installed but not specified will be uninstalled. We haven't yet pushed this to the LCFG level.

apteryx

Graham has been working on making it more robust. He's introduced a "crash and burn" option, which makes it stop when an infinite loop is detected (Bug:1233). He's also added a "fix broken" (dependencies) option. This should sort out ordering so that, for instance, an old version of a dependency will be removed before the updated version is installed. Of course our package management toolset will need rigorous testing before we use it in anger, but this should be possible - and hopefully scriptable - once we have an Ubuntu stable release.

More packages

Several graphical environments are now available - MATE, fvwm, a few others. KDE is not yet there. Lots of applications have been provided too. Python will hopefully be straightforward.

MATE on virtual machines

Alastair has been investigating problems using MATE on VirtualBox VMs over XRDP. He'll try it with KVM and using localhome.

User Security Training Materials

Not much progress with the material, but Chris praised the clear and plentiful Blackboard Learn documentation.

Misc Development

DSU

We're on 1.6 and the latest version is now 1.8. This claims to be capable of exporting a firmware inventory to a JSON file - ideal for integrating with clientreport! Chris will look at upgrading DSU. On Stephen's suggestion he'll keep 1.6 available via some sort of LEGACY macro for older machines (before 12thG).

Operational

nsu

This has now gone from the ssh servers.

-- ChrisCooke - 12 Jun 2020