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 Old to refer to any servers that we've used previously.
Note: We are in the process of migrating people who have signed up as guinea pigs. We are not currently accepting new domain requests or providing help to non-guinea-pigs. This will change once we have made reasonable progress in working out the kinks of the new setup.
1. Summary of what exactly is going on here
We are now offering limited-access 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 do not use them for anything important.
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. Currently NO OTHER SERVICES are officially supported on the new infrastructure (for example, email or serving HTTP), although we hope to make these available soon.
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.
2. How to get a mire account
We have created a file in each fyodor user's home directory called .mire-password. This file is readable only by you and the admin who will be processing the account creations.
If you would like to get a mire account, please put your desired password in the file ~/.mire-password. Please be VERY careful not to delete this file or change its permissions. The recommended procedure is to type:
cat > ~/.mire-password
and then type your desired password, press enter, and then press control-D. After you do this, please run the command:
ls -l ~/.mire-password
and make sure that the permission bits are -rw-rw---- (user and group can read and write) and the group for the file is set to megacz.
We will be running an account-creation script approximately once a day. After you put your password in ~/.mire-password, your account will be created the next time the script is run, typically no more than 24 hours after you specify your password. An email will be sent to your hcoop account to let you know that your account has been created. Your .mire-password file WILL BE DELETED when your account is created, so please make sure you memorize it before writing it to the file.
3. Databases
Here lie interim dbtool docs until migration is done, at which time they will probably move to UsingDatabases.
To manage your database user and databases, the basic syntax is dbtool <DBTYPE> <COMMAND>, where <DBTYPE> is postgres or mysql.
The adduser command creates a database user for you, with the same name as your UNIX log-in name. In the case of mysql, you will be prompted for a password and confirmation re-entry in the usual manner.
The passwd command allows you to reset the password. (Useless for postgres, where we use only ident authentication)
The createdb <DBNAME> command creates a database named <USERNAME>_<DBNAME>.
To access your database use the following on mire: mysql -p -h deleuze or psql -h deleuze USERNAME_DBNAME
4. DNS
We are purposely not sending any DNS data from New to Old, 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Email
7.1. .forward
~/.forward files should have the same effect that they do with our old setup.
7.2. IMAP
SSL IMAP is available via SSL at port 993, using hostname deleuze.hcoop.net.
STARTTLS IMAP is available on port 143, using hostname deleuze.hcoop.net.
7.3. POP3
POP3 access is available via SSL at port 995, using hostname deleuze.hcoop.net. If you're using Thunderbird, make sure to uncheck "Use secure authentication". Do not use port 110; it is not available, because no good way of securing normal POP3 has been found by the admins.
7.4. procmail
The page ProcmailExample has been updated for the new setup. Basically:
Use the file ~/.procmail.d/procmailrc instead of ~/.procmailrc.
Write any procmail logs in ~/Maildir rather than elsewhere.
Use appropriate values for the HOME, MAILDIR, and DEFAULT options, based on those in ProcmailExample.
8. 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".