[4138] in Release_7.7_team
3 December 2003 Athena UNIX Platform Team Monthly Status Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Wed Dec 3 17:47:37 2003
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: delivery@mit.edu, owls@mit.edu
Cc: release-team@mit.edu
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Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 17:47:33 -0500
Team Name: Athena UNIX Platform Team
Team Leader: Bill Cattey
Report Date: 3 December 2003
Submitted by: Bill Cattey
Team URL: http://web.mit.edu/teamhtml/Athena/
Release URL: http://web.mit.edu/release/www/
Accomplishments past period:
Last Month's goals:
ONGOING: Testing and bug fixing of Athena 9.2.
PROGRESS: Produce document, "Differences between Athena Linux and stock
Red Hat Linux". (Received draft from student. TODO: Review, refine and
publish.)
DELAYED: Develop Disconnected Athena documentation.
DELAYED: Integrate into the Athena release, the developed friendly way
to go on/off net or switch interfaces. UPDATE: Also looking at new
mechanism, "ifplugd".
PROGRESS: Investigate installing Athena software on Solaris with
Solaris package tools. (Design for changes to Athena build system to do
this have been drafted.)
DELAYED: Work on resizing of Windows partition as part of Linux Athena
install.
PROGRESS: Develop some simple command-line tools for manipulating mail
in
IMAP. (Existing ways of doing seemingly simple things are rather
baroque.)
PROGRESS: Test and deploy 9.2-based Solaris miniroot. (Tested. TODO:
Deploy after classes are over.)
DELAYED: Test Athena disconnected operation.
Community Milestones Met:
Deployed patch release with SMTP authentication and offlinehome script.
Deployed new PWOG.
Deployed updated Linux web pages.
Other Accomplishments:
* Figured out how to add MIT CA to Athena Mozilla. TODO: deploy.
* Engaged in many heavy-duty conversations with Red Hat.
* Updated Account registration documentation.
* Wrote, reviewed, and enqueued for publication in the IS Newsletter an
article on expanded Linux support.
* Wrote document "What is AFS?" that describes the AFS architecture and
navigation. It gives basic descriptions of volumes, cells, lockers, and
the Athena attach command.
* Made some site visits to understand and remedy some customer problems
with Athena Linux.
* Found and fixed a bug in the Athena installer.
Next month's goals:
ONGOING: Testing and bug fixing of current Athena release.
OLD: Review, revise and publish document, "Differences between Athena
Linux and stock Red Hat Linux".
OLD: Develop Disconnected Athena documentation.
OLD: Integrate into the Athena release, the developed friendly way to
go on/off net or switch interfaces.
OLD: Implement prototype for installing Athena software on Solaris with
Solaris package tools.
OLD: Work on resizing of Windows partition as part of Linux Athena
install.
OLD: Develop some simple command-line tools for manipulating mail in
IMAP. (Existing ways of doing seemingly simple things are rather
baroque.)
OLD: Deploy 9.2-based Solaris miniroot.
OLD: Test Athena disconnected operation.
NEW: If Mozilla 1.6 comes out in a timely manner, integrate it for an
Athena update.
Next Community Milestone(s):
Patch release targeted for early IAP with new Mozilla.
Bugfix patch release when next needed.
Issues:
With the changes announced by Red Hat, it is unclear what distribution
of Linux is appropriate for Athena. There are many conversations
going on with Red Hat to understand the new offerings, and make an
appropriate selection. UPDATE: We have asked many questions of Red
Hat to compare Fedora and Enterprise. From a technology standpoint
Enterprise looks like an improvement over the old Red Hat Linux for
Athena. Pricing and licensing is an open and possibly problematic
issue.
Key learnings:
Additional comments:
Athena Monthly machine counts:
Method: On install, machines get a unique ID. Each day every system
reports its existence to a central syslog. This method over-counts
systems installed multiple times. Systems running Athena than 9.0 or
earlier are not counted.
SYSTYPE 7/2003 8/2003 9/2003 10/2003 11/2003 Delta
LINUX 766 821 869 827 815 -12
SUN 842 788 768 741 750 +9
Summary Analysis: About the same as last month.
