1. Introduction

TableOfContents

2. Special topic pages about migration and new set-up

• AndrewFileSystem: Using our new shared filesystem

• DaemonAdmin: Daemon-specific pages aimed at admins

• DomTool: Administering and using the new domtool

• NewSystemHardware: Information on the new hardware

• TaskDistribution: What each sysadmin is responsible for

• SoftwareArchitecturePlans: Plans for software installation

• SystemArchitecturePlans: Plans regarding our hardware

The following are outdated:

• ColocationNextSteps: Listing of things to do after getting the hardware.

3. To-do list

3.1. Before beginning to migrate members

• Mailman
• DNS server daemon

• Apache Dynamic Content. Our viable options are:

  1. Have domtool support Apache13; use mod_waklog
     • less than 40 lines of code need to be changed in domtool's Apache20 module to do this
  2. Support only CGI (no PHP, suexec) and use kstart to wrap each CGI process
  3. Write our own versions of suexec and the suexecified-php (whatever it's called)
     • reliability/security/maintainability concerns

3.1.1. Misc

• Make ca@hcoop.net e-mail address working. It's the address that will be used in the certificate files.

• Make sure somebody is reading mail sent to abuse@hcoop.net so we don't wind up on lame DNSBLs

• Fix resolv.conf on both servers to have multiple good DNS servers for now, set it to use localhost once BIND is running and configured.
• Figure out how to use Dell OMSA or other tools to monitor RAID and other hardware.

• Configure Exim on mire to use deleuze as a smarthost. --MichaelOlson

• Do performance testing on the new configuration, by having admins or other users monitor performance on mire (using vmstat, top, mytop, etc) and having one or more (perhaps multi-threaded) scripts requesting web pages from somewhere off of the Peer 1 network.

3.2. During migration

• Watchdog process to kill resource hogs
• Migrate ejabberd mnesia db just before the dns switchover.

• Set up back-up regime, possibly using [http://rsync.net/ rsync.net].

• Get miscellaneous web stuff ported, like membership application, vmail password change, publicly-viewable statistics on membership, bandwidth usage stats, ....

4. Global Notes

• To edit LDAP database from a GUI tool, use gq program

• To connect to hcoop's ldap server using gq, create a SSH tunnel: ssh -p 2222 -f -N -L 389:localhost:389 USERNAME@69.90.123.67, and then connect to localhost:389 in gq.

• For the description of the actual authentication scheme, see AuthenticationScheme.

5. Tasks done

5.1. Deleuze

This machine donated by Justin Leitgeb seems real nice. Buffered disk throughput is about 1.5 GB/s. Raw disk reads are 60 MB/s for the two 36 GB disks and 120 MB/s for the 4-disk array. Not bad at all.

• Removed excessive packages, cleaned up the system

• Installed changetrack to monitor all config file changes. The program uses rcs and automatically keeps previous revisions. It is ran from cron on a daily basis.

• Installed debsums to monitor file md5sums

• Installed Courier IMAP and IMAP-SSL

• Installed LDAP for user authentication. The system is currently configured to use LDAP and fallback to the usual /etc/ files. Admin users will be added locally on all machines and will be able to log in even when LDAP is not operational.

• Installed MIT Kerberos 5

• Fixed date/time on the system. Installed ntpd

• Installed TLS support for LDAP. Certificate file is /etc/ldap/server.pem, and ldap/ldaps ports are 389/636.

• Installed Linux 2.6.18.3-grsec with 2.6.18-mm3 patches (2) for megaraid.

  • The patches and source tree installed, along with the .deb generated, is under /usr/src/ntk2. I set up sockets groups as on fyodor (7070-7072). SMP, with hyperthreading enhancements, is enabled. I also installed a bunch of packages that someone were uninstalled while I was gone (e.g., gcc). I also fixed the sudoers, wheel group, and admin home directories. --NathanKennedy

• Kerberos + LDAP works.

• Compiled requisite kernel modules, compiled and installed new OpenIPMI package, and installed dellomsa. Dell OMSA is now working. --NathanKennedy

• Install SSH.
• Permit new admins to log in by copying their SSH keys to their newly-created (empty) home directories.

• Install AFS (need to repeat the reading on AFS and how it really works. Also it will influence the decision how to format /dev/sdb in the system) -- DavorOcelic

• Install MySQL and PostgreSQL (input from AFS step and admin discussion needed to see how to exactly configure this).
• Install BIND.

• Install and configure Apache, to serve static web content only. --MichaelOlson

• Review kernel configuration and install testnet. -- DavorOcelic

• Configure exim4. --MichaelOlson

• Configure Courier IMAP daemons, reviewing fyodor's config. --MichaelOlson

• Migrate squirrelmail configuration settings from fyodor.

• Configure SquirrelMail to use imapproxyd, which should give speed improvements once we migrate to deleuze. --MichaelOlson

• Exim filters

  • (a method has been set up by MichaelOlson, but it needs testing).

6. Mire

• Installed new second SCSI hard drive, reinstalled debian, and configured the drives with software RAID-1. --NathanKennedy

• Configured Mire to work as a proper krb/ldap/afs client machine. --DavorOcelic

7. Custom software

• DomtoolTwo

• Vmail tools
• Web portal