Re: Questions: LAMP and PHPBB for OpenOffice.org

[Mark Thomas <ma...@apache.org>]

On 31/07/2011 21:59, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
> On ooo-dev, we continue to ponder how we can support the existing OpenOffice.org web site and the subdomains thereof with minimal friction and maximum preservation of the accumulated material.  Here is a thumbnail of what the objectives are:
> <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Transition+Planning> (with the understanding that development-focused aspects would move, at least in part, to Apache locations from the OpenOffice.org location).
> 
> Assuming
> 
>  1. That the OpenOffice.org domain lease is transferred to the Apache Software Foundation
>  2. That sufficient volunteers come forward to support whatever the infrastructure support requirements are, and
>  3. There are no legal@ objections,
> 
> Question
> 
>  4. Is it technically feasible and acceptable to have, operating on Apache infrastructure, the OpenOffice.org web site and subdomains as open public sites operating with software that would otherwise not be very tasty on Apache (PHPBB which is GPLd and may have some customizations, for example)?

Why would GPL be an issue? Last time I checked large parts of Linux were
GPL and we happily run that. We prefer to eat our own dogfood but will
happily run most things if it is the right tool for the task at hand. If
you look at what infra runs today, there is a wide range of proprietary
and open source software with a very wide range of licences.

> I know that is very hypothetical in this form, but it is not worth navigating (1-3) unless 4 would work at the end of the day.

I would imagine that these services would be hosted on project managed
virtual machines of some form and whoever manages them now would
continue to manage them. The central infra team may end up managing some
aspects such as DNS. The detail can be worked on as part of the
incubation process.

The much more important question is who will support it. There have been
far too many examples of projects requesting a service, promising to
help support it and then never being heard from again when it needs
maintenance. If the current maintenance is performed by Oracle rather
than the community there will be concerns about the viability of that model.

On a related note, infrastructure will not tolerate project managed
systems that are insecure. We will shut them down first and ask
questions later. Projects are expected to keep on top of security for
the services that they manage. We do arrange things so projects can only
shoot themselves in the foot but will still expect security to be
maintained.

Mark

Re: Questions: LAMP and PHPBB for OpenOffice.org

[Mark Thomas <ma...@apache.org>]

On 31/07/2011 23:46, TerryE wrote:
> On 31/07/11 23:09, Mark Thomas wrote:
> 
> <snip>
>> I would imagine that these services would be hosted on project managed
>> virtual machines of some form and whoever manages them now would
>> continue to manage them. The central infra team may end up managing some
>> aspects such as DNS. The detail can be worked on as part of the
>> incubation process.
>>
>> The much more important question is who will support it. There have been
>> far too many examples of projects requesting a service, promising to
>> help support it and then never being heard from again when it needs
>> maintenance. If the current maintenance is performed by Oracle rather
>> than the community there will be concerns about the viability of that
>> model.
>>
>> On a related note, infrastructure will not tolerate project managed
>> systems that are insecure. We will shut them down first and ask
>> questions later. Projects are expected to keep on top of security for
>> the services that they manage. We do arrange things so projects can only
>> shoot themselves in the foot but will still expect security to be
>> maintained.
>>
>> Mark
>>
> Mark,
> 
> I've been administering the forums for 4 years, including bringing on 8
> new languages, a migration from PostgreSQL to MySQL (when Sun bought
> MySQL LoL), and 5 phpBB upgrades.  The only service outages that we've
> had were when there were H/W problems in the Sun Datacentre.  I've
> automated just about all of the housekeeping, so there is no daily /
> weekly / monthly manual invention required.  So I think that we have a
> good track record here.
> 
> The wiki is more problematic since this was run by Oracle employees who
> have now been 'let-go'.   However, I used to help with the main guy with
> advice on Apache / MediaWiki / PHP / MySQL tuning and so I know  and
> have interactive access to the systen.  I can rehost this and continue
> to run it on a 'sustain' basis so that we can continue to provide the
> service until the project works out its migration / retirement plans.
> 
> Yes, I am a single point of failure, but I am more than willing to
> document the SysOps and or train up someone else.   It's just that
> there's a dearth of LAMP developer / admins amongst the OOo user
> community.  Another member of the ooo-dev list used help until I
> automated everything and he had other priorities in the project.  I used
> to be the operations CTO for EDS in Europe before I retired early and
> went back to the simple stuff as a hobby, so I understand all about the
> security side!

That all sounds good to me.

> I've got D/R / maintenance copies of both the forums and the wiki on a
> couple of standard Ubuntu 10.04-3 LTS VMs, but if you have any
> guidelines / VM templates / management interface documentation then send
> me a copy and I'll reflect them in my plans / work.

That is mostly all in the infra svn repository.

> And BTW, a simple Q:  what virtualisation technology are using in your
> prod environment? VMware, KVM or what?

VMware, Solaris Zones (on the way out - slowly), FreeBSD jails.

See
http://monitoring.apache.org/status/
and
http://www.apache.org/dev/machines.html
for more details.

Mark

Re: Questions: LAMP and PHPBB for OpenOffice.org

[Mark Thomas <ma...@apache.org>]

On 31/07/2011 23:46, TerryE wrote:
> On 31/07/11 23:09, Mark Thomas wrote:
> 
> <snip>
>> I would imagine that these services would be hosted on project managed
>> virtual machines of some form and whoever manages them now would
>> continue to manage them. The central infra team may end up managing some
>> aspects such as DNS. The detail can be worked on as part of the
>> incubation process.
>>
>> The much more important question is who will support it. There have been
>> far too many examples of projects requesting a service, promising to
>> help support it and then never being heard from again when it needs
>> maintenance. If the current maintenance is performed by Oracle rather
>> than the community there will be concerns about the viability of that
>> model.
>>
>> On a related note, infrastructure will not tolerate project managed
>> systems that are insecure. We will shut them down first and ask
>> questions later. Projects are expected to keep on top of security for
>> the services that they manage. We do arrange things so projects can only
>> shoot themselves in the foot but will still expect security to be
>> maintained.
>>
>> Mark
>>
> Mark,
> 
> I've been administering the forums for 4 years, including bringing on 8
> new languages, a migration from PostgreSQL to MySQL (when Sun bought
> MySQL LoL), and 5 phpBB upgrades.  The only service outages that we've
> had were when there were H/W problems in the Sun Datacentre.  I've
> automated just about all of the housekeeping, so there is no daily /
> weekly / monthly manual invention required.  So I think that we have a
> good track record here.
> 
> The wiki is more problematic since this was run by Oracle employees who
> have now been 'let-go'.   However, I used to help with the main guy with
> advice on Apache / MediaWiki / PHP / MySQL tuning and so I know  and
> have interactive access to the systen.  I can rehost this and continue
> to run it on a 'sustain' basis so that we can continue to provide the
> service until the project works out its migration / retirement plans.
> 
> Yes, I am a single point of failure, but I am more than willing to
> document the SysOps and or train up someone else.   It's just that
> there's a dearth of LAMP developer / admins amongst the OOo user
> community.  Another member of the ooo-dev list used help until I
> automated everything and he had other priorities in the project.  I used
> to be the operations CTO for EDS in Europe before I retired early and
> went back to the simple stuff as a hobby, so I understand all about the
> security side!

That all sounds good to me.

> I've got D/R / maintenance copies of both the forums and the wiki on a
> couple of standard Ubuntu 10.04-3 LTS VMs, but if you have any
> guidelines / VM templates / management interface documentation then send
> me a copy and I'll reflect them in my plans / work.

That is mostly all in the infra svn repository.

> And BTW, a simple Q:  what virtualisation technology are using in your
> prod environment? VMware, KVM or what?

VMware, Solaris Zones (on the way out - slowly), FreeBSD jails.

See
http://monitoring.apache.org/status/
and
http://www.apache.org/dev/machines.html
for more details.

Mark

Re: Questions: LAMP and PHPBB for OpenOffice.org

[TerryE <oo...@ellisons.org.uk>]

On 31/07/11 23:09, Mark Thomas wrote:

<snip>
> I would imagine that these services would be hosted on project managed
> virtual machines of some form and whoever manages them now would
> continue to manage them. The central infra team may end up managing some
> aspects such as DNS. The detail can be worked on as part of the
> incubation process.
>
> The much more important question is who will support it. There have been
> far too many examples of projects requesting a service, promising to
> help support it and then never being heard from again when it needs
> maintenance. If the current maintenance is performed by Oracle rather
> than the community there will be concerns about the viability of that model.
>
> On a related note, infrastructure will not tolerate project managed
> systems that are insecure. We will shut them down first and ask
> questions later. Projects are expected to keep on top of security for
> the services that they manage. We do arrange things so projects can only
> shoot themselves in the foot but will still expect security to be
> maintained.
>
> Mark
>
Mark,

I've been administering the forums for 4 years, including bringing on 8 
new languages, a migration from PostgreSQL to MySQL (when Sun bought 
MySQL LoL), and 5 phpBB upgrades.  The only service outages that we've 
had were when there were H/W problems in the Sun Datacentre.  I've 
automated just about all of the housekeeping, so there is no daily / 
weekly / monthly manual invention required.  So I think that we have a 
good track record here.

The wiki is more problematic since this was run by Oracle employees who 
have now been 'let-go'.   However, I used to help with the main guy with 
advice on Apache / MediaWiki / PHP / MySQL tuning and so I know  and 
have interactive access to the systen.  I can rehost this and continue 
to run it on a 'sustain' basis so that we can continue to provide the 
service until the project works out its migration / retirement plans.

Yes, I am a single point of failure, but I am more than willing to 
document the SysOps and or train up someone else.   It's just that 
there's a dearth of LAMP developer / admins amongst the OOo user 
community.  Another member of the ooo-dev list used help until I 
automated everything and he had other priorities in the project.  I used 
to be the operations CTO for EDS in Europe before I retired early and 
went back to the simple stuff as a hobby, so I understand all about the 
security side!

I've got D/R / maintenance copies of both the forums and the wiki on a 
couple of standard Ubuntu 10.04-3 LTS VMs, but if you have any 
guidelines / VM templates / management interface documentation then send 
me a copy and I'll reflect them in my plans / work.

And BTW, a simple Q:  what virtualisation technology are using in your 
prod environment? VMware, KVM or what?

Regards Terry

Re: Questions: LAMP and PHPBB for OpenOffice.org

[TerryE <oo...@ellisons.org.uk>]

On 31/07/11 23:09, Mark Thomas wrote:

<snip>
> I would imagine that these services would be hosted on project managed
> virtual machines of some form and whoever manages them now would
> continue to manage them. The central infra team may end up managing some
> aspects such as DNS. The detail can be worked on as part of the
> incubation process.
>
> The much more important question is who will support it. There have been
> far too many examples of projects requesting a service, promising to
> help support it and then never being heard from again when it needs
> maintenance. If the current maintenance is performed by Oracle rather
> than the community there will be concerns about the viability of that model.
>
> On a related note, infrastructure will not tolerate project managed
> systems that are insecure. We will shut them down first and ask
> questions later. Projects are expected to keep on top of security for
> the services that they manage. We do arrange things so projects can only
> shoot themselves in the foot but will still expect security to be
> maintained.
>
> Mark
>
Mark,

I've been administering the forums for 4 years, including bringing on 8 
new languages, a migration from PostgreSQL to MySQL (when Sun bought 
MySQL LoL), and 5 phpBB upgrades.  The only service outages that we've 
had were when there were H/W problems in the Sun Datacentre.  I've 
automated just about all of the housekeeping, so there is no daily / 
weekly / monthly manual invention required.  So I think that we have a 
good track record here.

The wiki is more problematic since this was run by Oracle employees who 
have now been 'let-go'.   However, I used to help with the main guy with 
advice on Apache / MediaWiki / PHP / MySQL tuning and so I know  and 
have interactive access to the systen.  I can rehost this and continue 
to run it on a 'sustain' basis so that we can continue to provide the 
service until the project works out its migration / retirement plans.

Yes, I am a single point of failure, but I am more than willing to 
document the SysOps and or train up someone else.   It's just that 
there's a dearth of LAMP developer / admins amongst the OOo user 
community.  Another member of the ooo-dev list used help until I 
automated everything and he had other priorities in the project.  I used 
to be the operations CTO for EDS in Europe before I retired early and 
went back to the simple stuff as a hobby, so I understand all about the 
security side!

I've got D/R / maintenance copies of both the forums and the wiki on a 
couple of standard Ubuntu 10.04-3 LTS VMs, but if you have any 
guidelines / VM templates / management interface documentation then send 
me a copy and I'll reflect them in my plans / work.

And BTW, a simple Q:  what virtualisation technology are using in your 
prod environment? VMware, KVM or what?

Regards Terry