mmcgrath
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "mmcgrath" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:01 pm
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Warning! Warning! New Wiki Coming!
I love my job. I do. But sometimes being the infrastructure team lead blows because you get stuck doing the stuff no one in their right mind will volunteer for. It also means getting stuck taking the blame for stuff that goes wrong. This is one of those times. We've come a long way from:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-December/msg00802.html
to:
https://publictest1.fedoraproject.org/wiki/
But I'm still not totally happy with the conversion script. At this point though its putting in a lot of effort for minimal gain. The bottom line is Moin just isn't cutting it for us anymore. We're moving to mediawiki. There's a small SIG of various team leads thats been working on this with me. There's around 12,000 pages and over 4,000 attachments and currently thousands and thousands of users. Combine that with my mediocre python skills and publictest1 is what you're going to get!
So what can you do?
Go through the publictest1 page listed above (no editing yet, expect it soon though with OpenID + FAS support). Find things that don't look right. By that I mean look for things broken on many pages. If its just on your page or a couple, just fix the problem after the migration.
Lots of things are different in Mediawiki then Moin. Some of these differences are at the very core of why Moin is so unscalable. Become familiar with this page:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/WikiMigration
If you have a concern contact your team lead listed on that page. If your team is not represented, sorry about that, please add yourself.
We're looking at deploying on the 20th or the 27th. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. This is going to involve pain for at least the couple of weeks after its deployed. If you have a ticket to file please do so here:
https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ ; PLEASE put the keyword "WIKI" in the ticket.
If you want to be 100% sure your issue will get fixed... submit a patch otherwise you might just be stuck fixing it after the migration.
http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/fedora-infrastruture.git/scripts/moin2mw/
Props goes out to ivazquez for unicode support and ianweller who has helped me become more familiar with mediawiki and continues to be a valuable asset in this conversion.
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07:28 pm
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I beg you
Will someone (anyone) find a meeting time for the web team to meet. Put together an agenda, hold the meeting and put the notes up on the list.
Anyone can do this.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-websites-list/2008-April/msg00363.html
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09:06 pm
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Just pick one!!!
Dear kernel developers,
I love all of you. I do. But would you please all get together and pick a unit everyone can agree on? I mean come on:
/proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
/proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs
Who measures anything in centiseconds? really :)
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10:00 am
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Whats this meme stuff?
Here's mine:
[mmcgrath@laptop ~]$ history | awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -rn|head
231 ssh
154 cd
148 ls
95 sudo
49 vi
40 alpine
29 git
24 ping
19 rpm
19 make
Just as I thought... basically nothing more then a terminal.
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09:36 am
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Please Help
We're working to migrate the wiki to mediawiki but as of yet very few people have actually stepped up and helped out. I really need some more python programmers and eyes here or this is going to be a huge failure for everyone (except for Infrastructure who actually runs the thing).
In particular we need help with:
- Migration script
- Attachments
- Templates design
- Plugin testing
Right now the site is up at:
https://publictest1.fedoraproject.org/wiki/
The ticket is at:
https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/31
If you're interested in helping please stop by #fedora-admin, tell us what skill set you have and what you're interested in doing.
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10:26 pm
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Pycon was great
Tom, Luke, Toshio and I all went to pycon this last weekend. Luke and Toshio are still there doing sprints. I have to say it was a great setup. Facilities and snacks aside. Some of the talks were great. We went to a talk about writing custom trac plugins and I have to say, even though the default trac plugin is a bit sore on the eyes, those guys _really_ have their act together.
Toshio and Luke all got great ideas for Fedora and how to better utilize our code. The talk on Unicode alone was an amazing wakeup call for luke and I. needless to say, we've been doing it wrong. But no more. There was so much covered in such a short amount that I can't list them all here. Needless to say with as much as we use Python in our OS and in our Infrastructure I'd highly encourage anyone that can come, to come next year.
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10:19 pm
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FAS2 ships!
Thanks to the hard work and efforts of Toshio and Ricky, FAS2 ships!
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/
I have to say, I've seen much larger teams with much larger budgets do much less work in twice the time. Its been a great project to work on with the two of them and I look forward to seeing how far we can take this new system. Its got lots of options built into it though many of them aren't available yet. Imagine being able to manage your asterisk mailbox password and list passwords all from one location. well thats what we're hoping for. But one step at a time. Enjoy!
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02:34 pm
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Comcast and accountability
I'm in the middle of an internet outage right now and was forced to use my backup. I called comcast they said they already knew about the outage and were working to fix it. I asked for a credit to my account and they said I'd have to call back to get the credit after the outage was over.
Why aren't these credits automatically applied?
I've had a few bbb complaints in the past, almost always to cable companies. How can I (or we) hold them and other companies, more accountable for their actions?
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09:19 am
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FAS2 Testing Needed!
Well, we've been working on it for a long time and even with a last minute core technology change FAS2 is ready for testing and almost ready for deployment. What is FAS2 you ask? Its the second iteration of the Fedora Accounts System. It's based off of TurboGears and has so many standards and future expandability I won't even go into that here. What I will say is that we'd like everyone to come test it before we deploy it in the next week or two.
The test site is at: https://publictest10.fedoraproject.org/accounts/
This system is completely separate from the current running system so feel free to come in, setup a test account, or 2 or 10, and groups. If you'd like admin or sponsor access to a group just stop by #fedora-admin and ask for it and someone will set you up. What are features to look forward to in FAS2?
- Online help system
- Translations (the systems there but without translations currently)
- JSON Interface
- More comprehensive client for shell access
- Easier to sign the CLA
- OpenID interface (work in progress)
- Much less developer-centeric interface
To get your own local install going just run:
yum install git-core
git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/fedora-infrastructure.git/
cd fedora-infrastructure.git/fas
vi README
If you have any bugs to report please send them to:
https://fedorahosted.org/fas2/
We're also taking feature requests though they will likely not make it into the initial deployment. Happy hacking!
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10:59 am
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We need some more help!
Alrighty everyone, so one thing we did recently was go out and get a new torrent server so we'd have plenty of space for all those spins. Well, as it turns out torrent is ill suited to distribute some content and we could really use another storage medium.
So what do I have in mind?
Just storage, served by ftp, http and rsync (acl's on rsync) to act as a primary mirror for Fedora's secondary content. What is secondary content you ask? Potentially plenty of stuff. A mirror for fedorahosted releases, video and training content, secondary archs, non-official or archived releases. Really there is quite a bit of stuff that we could be distributing (and should be!) that we just can't right now.
So what are the specs?
- I'd like between 2T and 10T of actual storage hosted at your location.
- Internet and Internet2 access
- 1 Gigabit or faster connection
- The ability for fedora to push content
- Some sort of acl system for rsync for other mirrors.
How do you get involved?
Email me! I'd love to talk more about this. mmcgrath@redhat.com This would be a huge help to us right now.
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01:22 pm
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Smolt is about to break!
Smolt 1.1 is going to be in your repos very soon. The old client will not work with the new server. There's a lot of changes in this release. The biggest is the separation of public and private UUID's. They used to be the same thing but on more. Thanks to some of the work done by Yaakov this is a pretty easy thing to do. Basically the private UUID stays on your box and you, the user, never really uses it.
This is to put some of the basic groundwork for our ultra-secure smolt client side. There is a new option in the smolt config "secure". It doesn't do much now but in the future, with proper selinux, it will be possible for admins to secure smolt in a way that just has not been possible in the past allowing for a much more anonymous submission as well as preventing even users with local access to the system access to smolt.
Also there's a little bit of randomization being built into the new script. This will make smolt more reliable on sending. Look for more graphs and metrics on the next release (including being able to view all those ratings you all have been doing!)
When the new version comes out, run smoltSendProfile -a and make sure to go in and rate your profile!
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09:27 pm
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How geeky are you?
So most computer geeks know why the date January 1st 1970 comes up a lot in dealing with software because of Unix epoch. And I can't claim to be geeky enough to answer this question without looking but I thought I'd challenge you and see how many people, if any, do actually know it without having to think about it or look it up....
What day of the week was January 1st 1970?
party like its 1969.
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12:42 am
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Remember when?
Remember when it used to be:
SRPM -> Plague -> RPM?
I remember that time.
Now its
SRPM -> Koji -> lots of outages since it's installation -> tons of new hardware (the majority of Fedora's Infrastructure cost) -> late night wake up alerts -> RPM
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11:46 am
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I had a knife on a plane 2 times this last week.
So yeah, an interesting thing happened when I tried to get home from Phoenix yesterday. I got pulled aside and asked "Sir, I'd like to search your bag but before I do, do you have any sharp objects in it?"
To which I replied "no"
Then, in an instant, my face probably looked very surprised.
"Actually, yes, yes I do have a sharp object in there"
I always stick my keys in my laptop bag before going through security. I had recently added a pocket knife to the key ring. So I told him that, he took it out and removed the knife and I went on my way.
Then I realized it would have been on the plane with me from MDW to RDU, and from RDU to PHX. Classic.
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01:08 pm
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What a week!
Jan 9th: Arrive to Raleigh, head in to work for a little bit.
Jan 10th: Meetings, work, meetings
Jan 11th: Hackfest, didn't get anything done as usual. Had to help others, comes with the territory.
Jan 12th: FUDCon - Initial feelings of a cold (not the only one :-/) Gave two talks. One on the Infrastructure setup, one with Paul Frields about single sign on and lowering the barriers.
Jan 13th: Hackfest - Drove to the airport a lot to drop people off.
Jan 14th: Meetings, work, Meetings. Dinner at Seths, soup did the soul good. Still feeling sick.
Jan 15th: Work, Meetings Work, flew out to Phoenix instead of back home to Chicago. No more clean clothes at that point. Ate Glezos' chocolate for dinner.
Jan 16th: Head in to colo. Rack new disk tray and tape drive. Minor cable cleanup (there's only so much time).
Jan 17th: Verify all pdu labels, server labels, kvm labels, and cyclades go to the server they claim to. Fly home. Pass out for the night, hope to shake the cold.
Jan 18th: Sleeeeep
Jan 19th: Head to Iowa to visit old friend.
FUDCon was awesome as always. Its always exhausting but well well worth it.
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10:05 am
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Quick Shout Out
Got to love FUDCon. I come excited, leave exhausted and couldn't have had a better time. I had a chance to meet Ricky and Yaakov. I've been working with both for some time online now. Ricky has been doing some great things in Fedora Infrastructure and has been a valuable asset. Yaakov has been working with me on Smolt and has been taking very good care of things. Especially, more recently, helping fix some architectural issues that I did not foresee when I first started Smolt. Those guys rock :)
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10:40 pm
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New Year's Resoluion: 3840x2400
I've been thinking about that whole new years resolution thing, sometimes I just cast it aside and don't make one. I'm one of those people who honestly believes in making a resolution and sticking with it or not doing it at all. Not afraid of the commitment, though sometimes I'm afraid what I'm committing to.
So what's the resolution for this year?
Get rid of half the things I own.
And the trick here is not to replace them with anything. I hope to lead more simple and focused life. Now, obviously I've got to set up some ground rules. Half of the things I own is kind of vague. After all, I can't get rid of half of my bikes.... I've only got one :). Also, as it turns out, my lovely wife isn't as keen on this as I am. So called "community items" will take some serious talking about. But there's plenty I can get rid of:
Clothes. I'm really not much one for vanity As a result of this, I never get rid of anything. I still own t-shirts from before I could drive. It's time for them to go.
Electronics: I'm a geek to the core and have been collecting computers and other bits for a long long time. The fact is, I don't need a beowulf cluster. I'll probably keep the half rack around, it's been a wonderful lab and I use it quite regularly. But there's some crap that I just don't need around. Just got rid of the game cube and all those games, should probably start thinking about other systems I just don't play on much anymore.
Kitchen gadgets: There was a point in time in my life where I practically collected kitchen stuff. I loved to cook, still do. But I actually know how to cook now and there's really something to be said about going back to basics. Besides, I fancy myself a grill master and there's just not a whole lot need to make a good rack of ribs, some beer can chicken or kabob's and Naan.
Well anyway, we'll see how this works out. Wish me luck.
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09:27 pm
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Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Well My parents said it could never be done. My lady said it shouldn't be done. But I did it anyway. Whats the result? Well, it tastes like bacon and chocolate chips. And maple. Well worth it though. There's two cups of bacon bits in the batch and crispy bacon on top.
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01:30 pm
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Oh english...
I've always had a love hate relationship with the english language. I'm originally from central Illinois (Springfield) deep in "soda" territory. Note: I'm not sure how it is in other countries but in the US there's a few different words for the same thing (a soda or pepsi or coke or whatever). For more info see here: http://popvssoda.com:2998/
Like I said, I'm from soda country though recently moved to a mostly "pop" town. I stick with soda because it sounds natural to me and for arguments sake, there are already so many other uses for the word pop. There's pop-music. I can pop a balloon or even hop on pop if I want to. Soda mostly stays true to its meaning though. This brings me to another interesting word that we use a lot in the Linux world.
Support.
It seems straight forward at first but we throw the word support around a lot in email and IRC without really thinking about what it means to us, or to the people we're talking to. For example.
CentOS5 is not supported.
Fedora Core 5 is not supported.
But CentOS5 is "not supported" in a very very different way then Fedora Core 5 is "not supported". Another example:
Fedora 8 is supported
RHEL5 is supported
But again, RHEL5 has support in a very different way then Fedora 8 has support. So whats the point of all this? There isn't one, but my build is done so I'm going to get back to work.
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08:35 pm
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The real death of extras
It wasn't that long ago that people were blogging and talking about the merge of Fedora Core and Fedora Extras, people cheered! It wasn't without its bumps but now we can officially say it. Fedora Extras is dead. FC6 is no longer supported and with it, goes Fedora Extras. No more packages built, no more updates made. All that remains is the Fedora Collection, and what a collection it is! Thanks Extras. It's been fun.
Tags: i
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