This page describes the steps that members using the old machines need to take in order to migrate to the new machines.

For the purposes of this page, we'll use the name New to refer to the servers hosted at Peer 1 (which are deleuze, mire, and eventually abulafia and krunk) and Old to refer to any servers that we've used previously.

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Status of Migration

14 September 2007: Migration has begun! Use this page to learn how to create a new account and migrate your data. A user creation script will be run periodically each day.

Summary of what exactly is going on here

We are now offering accounts on the new infrastructure (see NewServersSetup) on a "beta test" basis to all users who have accounts on fyodor. These accounts come with no uptime or service guarantee; during the next few weeks we may need to temporarily disable them from time to time. Please keep all of your original data on Fyodor in the event something unexpected happens.

These accounts will allow you full access to your space in AFS (currently 400MB per user) and the ability to log in to mire.hcoop.net via ssh. Email is also supported. Currently NO OTHER SERVICES are officially supported on the new infrastructure (for example, serving HTTP), although they do work.

Requesting an account on the new infrastructure will not affect your fyodor account. You will have access to both accounts until after all migration is complete.

Getting started

Step 1: Get a New account

1. ssh to hcoop.net as usual.

2. Run this command line: migrationpw

3. Follow the on-screen directions.
4. Wait for an e-mail from the user creation script. (This stage requires that a human run the script periodically to watch for failures, but one of us should run it several times a day.)

The password you set will go into our new Kerberos database, allowing log-in to mire and any other of our servers that we choose to enable for non-admin shell access. You will also use this password for authentication to other services, like e-mail and members-only HCoop web sites.

An e-mail will be sent to your HCoop account to let you know that your account has been created. Be sure to memorize your password, as it won't be saved anywhere unencrypted once the account creation script runs!

Step 2: Try logging in

Now you may attempt to login using your favorite SSH client or the new AJAX SSH service at http://ssh.hcoop.net/. It requires a modern browser that cooperates with AJAX.

SSH Public Key is Obsoleted

You can no longer use SSH public key authentication. ["Kerberos"] authentication ("ssh -K") is supported, for passwordless log-in. Some day, someone might implement the Kerberos support needed to make SSH public key auth work again. See RealSecurity for more information on all of this.

That being said, if you've always been typing a password to log in via SSH and don't care to do otherwise, then you don't need to bother reading this section!

DenyHosts

If you fail to log in correctly a few times the DenyHosts scripts will lock you out. Currently any blocked IP's are purged after a week, so if you don't want to wait you'll need to submit a ticket, or if you can't access the portal to do this you'll need to send an email to admins@hcoop.net.

Step 3: Visit the new portal

[https://members2.hcoop.net/ The new portal] uses the same password you use to log in to mire. That is, if you haven't created a New account yet, then you can't access the new portal.

You should use the new portal for all administrative requests, except for the specialized request types (e.g., domains, firewall rules, etc.) when they relate to fyodor.

Step 4: Have your mail dual-delivered

We recommend that you tell fyodor to dual-deliver all of your mail so that one copy goes to deleuze (our new main server) and one copy goes to fyodor. That way you can start reading your email via deleuze, but if anything goes wrong you can just switch back to fyodor.

To do this, put the following lines in your ~/.forward file on fyodor. Note that the comment on the first line is mandatory -- it tells exim that this forward file uses special exim features. If your username was fred, you would put this in your ~/.forward:

  # Exim filter
  deliver fred
  deliver fred@deleuze.hcoop.net

and you mail will be dual-delivered.

Step 5: Copy your existing email

You can also copy the contents of your mailboxes from fyodor to mire (actually to our shared AFS filesystem by way of mire). To do this, log in to fyodor and type the following.

  rsync -are ssh --no-g --progress --verbose ~/Maildir/ mire.hcoop.net:Maildir/

Migration strategy

Making a subdomain on fyodor and pointing it at mire

It is possible to test out your setup on the new servers by making a new subdomin on the old machine that points to the new machine. This way you can hone your new setup until it's as good as the old, while still having access to the old.

First, make a directory in your /etc/domains/DOMAIN folder on the old machine. DOMAIN is your domain, and SUB is the new subdomain that you would like to use. SUB should not include any of the text in DOMAIN, and should have no periods.

mkdir /etc/domains/DOMAIN/SUB

In that directory, make a file called .dns with the following contents.

Primary         ns      ns
Default         69.90.123.68

Then, run the domtool command to finalize your changes on Fyodor.

Now request control of the DOMAIN using the new portal (http://members2.hcoop.net). When you receive notification of control, you can then log into mire.hcoop.net and configure DomTool so that Apache knows it can serve your SUBdomain. Please take a look at the [:MemberManual/UsingDomtool: using DomTool], the [:DomTool/UserGuide: DomTool user guide], and [:DomTool/Examples: DomTool examples] to learn how to do this. You'll probably want to take a look at the vhost directive.

Quickies

Be sure to read through the chapters of the MemberManual that interest you. The following are some very quick overviews of things that have changed. Don't expect it to be exhaustive.

DNS

We are purposely not sending any DNS data from Old to New, which means that you need to change domains at your registrar if you want New to be authoritative for them. The proper nameservers are ns1.hcoop.net and ns3.hcoop.net, in that order. Keeping ns.hcoop.net and ns2.hcoop.net will not work.

Domains

See the DomTool page for instructions on managing your domains with the new setup. The configuration files are in a vastly different format, but they have a better-defined syntax that should be relatively easy to understand.

Home

Your home directory is now managed by AFS. You will enter it by default when logging in to mire.hcoop.net via ssh. Type pwd to see what the path is. It will look like /afs/hcoop.net/user/u/us/username. Some directories have been created for you already, so that they have the correct permissions for things like serving web pages and delivering mail.

webmail

A Squirrelmail instance for reading your email on the new servers is available at [https://mail2.hcoop.net/].

rsync

If you're using rsync to transfer data to the new servers, the "-a" option by itself won't work properly because rsync attempts to chgrp the transferred files. Use "-a --no-g" instead of "-a".

Securing directories

First of all, UNIX permissions carry no weight with AFS -- therefore they are useless to you. Instead, use Access Control Lists (ACL), which are a far more powerful way of restricting access to parts of a file tree.

That said, when a new directory is created inside $HOME, its ACL defaults to allow listing by any authenticated party on HCoop. Note that ACLs cannot be set on individual files. They inherit the ACL from its parent directory.

If you wish to make a directory within your $HOME completely private so that only you can list, read, and write, do this:

mkdir ~/private
fs setacl -clear ~/private <USERNAME> all

Note that -clear removes any previously set ACLs and <USERNAME> all sets full access to the directory's contents to the specified user. Therefore, if you have a directory in $HOME that you wish to make only accessible to you (such as ~/.ssh or ~/documents), use: fs setacl -clear ~/<DIRECTORY> <USERNAME> all.

If you use domtool to set up your domain, there is a way to allow system:anyuser only to list the contents of public_html without breaking your website(s). By default ACLs R and L are given. Change that in this way: fs setacl ~/public_html system:anyuser l. Now, add all permissions for the USER.daemon principle:  fs setacl ~/public_html <USERNAME>.daemon all. Be aware that this only works if you use your own domain -- if you use http://deleuze.hcoop.net/~USERNAME to serve your files, then you must be sure that system:anyuser can read ~/public_html and its subdirectories.

If you wish to view the ACLs on a specific directory, such as any you have just applied an ACL, use: fs listacl <DIRECTORY>

WebDAV

WebDAV is accessible at https://dav.hcoop.net/. WebDAV is useful when working on a website using systems that cannot mount an AFS share. For details on how to setup WebDAV, take a look at http://research.cs.berkeley.edu/doc/dav/

Note that you can only use WebDAV on directories that have system:anyuser rl as part of its ACL. You'll be able to write even if system:anyuser does not. See Securing Directories on this page for additional details on directory ACLs.

Web sites

Websites with a domtool-managed domain

When you publish web content, it will probably live in your home directory. The web server will need permission to read your files, or it will return "403 Access Denied" errors. Since your home directory is in AFS, normal UNIX permissions are irrelevant. See AndrewFileSystem for information on how to work with AFS's separate notion of permissions.

For instance, if you get a 403 error serving ~/public_html/otherdir/page.html, you might run this to see what's up:

{{{$ fs listacl ~/public_html/otherdir Access list for /afs/hcoop.net/user/y/yo/you/public_html/otherdir is Normal rights:

• system:administrators rlidwka system:anyuser l you rlidwka}}}

Oops! Apache only matches the "system:anyuser" principal, so it only gets the "l" (= "list") permission and can only list your directory contents. Try this to fix it:

{{{$ fs setacl ~/public_html/otherdir system:anyuser read $ fs setacl ~/public_html system:anyuser read $ fs setacl ~ system:anyuser l}}}

The first two give full read permission on the mentioned directories. "l" permission is needed in every parent directory of a file to be able to access it, so the last line makes sure "l" is granted to system:anyuser on your home directory.

When your web content is accessed through your own virtual host, you can also grant read access to $USER.daemon instead of the broader system:anyuser, where $USER is your username. This is your bizarro-world twin, which Apache runs as when serving your content.

Web Pages without a Domain

Your ~/public_html directory is available via HTTP through http://deleuze.hcoop.net/~USER/. Eventually this will change to http://hcoop.net/~USER/.

Due to consequences of AFS authentication, we don't plan to allow dynamic content (CGI, PHP, etc.) via hcoop.net/~you/... on New. If you don't have a domain hosted at HCoop, but want to serve dynamic content, then you can request an hcoop.net subdomain (example: USER.hcoop.net, where USER is your username) via [http://bugzilla.hcoop.net/].

OpenAFS

See the [:../TransferringFiles/OpenAFS:OpenAFS] subpage to find installation directions for various operating systems.