[5373] in Release_7.7_team
7 December 2005 Athena Release Team Status Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Wed Dec 7 15:06:18 2005
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From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 15:06:25 -0500
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Team Name: Athena Release Team
Report Date: 7 December 2005
Submitted by: Bill Cattey
Team URL: http://web.mit.edu/teamhtml/Athena/
Release URL: http://web.mit.edu/release/www/
Accomplishments past period:
ONGOING: Testing and bug fixing of current Athena release.
Last Month's goals:
RESTART: Develop Disconnected Athena documentation. (Disconnected
operation has been recognized as important again.)
PROGRESS: For Athena disconnected operation, craft fixes for issues
raised in testing and retest.
DELAYED: Investigate RPM issue that is resulting in deleted system
files as
a result of interrupted updates. (We are waiting for Red Hat on this.)
PROGRESS: Discuss project plans for long term Athena work.
DONE: Implement Java3d request.
PROGRESS: Finish Solaris 10 installer integration for summer's Athena
full release.
DELAYED: Tweak Linux Athena install to install 9.4 directly rather than
as an update from 9.3.
DELAYED: Update Linux Athena install to be based on RHEL 4 to handle
new hardware.
DELAYED: Investigate update to OpenSSH to comply with gssapi-with-mic
which would interoperate with the RHEL 4 and MacOSX code base. Issues:
backward compatibility with older gssapi OpenSSH clients, and getting
resources to do the work.)
DELAYED: As part of update of Athena Release web pages, update the
Athena Release Testing Order doc.
DONE: Publish Athena Linux 9.4 version page under IS&T RHEL PFD, and
Athena install doc, and update relevant pages that should point to it.
DELAYED: Update remote connections document in OLH. (Waiting on release
of a non-athena remote connection client that appears in the doc.)
DONE: Identify and integrate upstream fixes for metacity for Zephyr
window stacking order problem.
DONE: Develop fixes for sound issues on cluster machines.
DONE: Determine if Java3d request is still desired.
Community Milestones Met:
Patch release containing sound fix for Linux, security fixes, security
updates to Mozilla and Firefox, fix for Zephyr window stacking order
issue, fix for Mozilla/Firefox file lock dialog box usability issue,
and if still needed by customer, Java3d. Delivered before drop date.
Other Accomplishments:
* Investigated issues arising from Sun patches applied in the 9.4.19
patch release.
* Integrated new patches to resolve those issues.
* Integrated new JDK to resolve security issues.
Next month's goals:
ONGOING: Testing and bug fixing of current Athena release.
RESTART: Develop Disconnected Athena documentation. (Disconnected
operation has been recognized as important again.)
OLD: For Athena disconnected operation, craft fixes for issues
raised in testing and retest.
OLD: Investigate RPM issue that is resulting in deleted system files as
a result of interrupted updates.
OLD: Discuss project plans for long term Athena work.
OLD: Finish Solaris 10 installer integration for summer's Athena full
release.
OLD: Tweak Linux Athena install to install 9.4 directly rather than as
an update from 9.3.
OLD: Update Linux Athena install to be based on RHEL 4 to handle new
hardware.
OLD: Investigate update to OpenSSH to comply with gssapi-with-mic which
would interoperate with the RHEL 4 and MacOSX code base. Issues:
backward compatibility with older gssapi OpenSSH clients, and getting
resources to do the work.)
OLD: As part of update of Athena Release web pages, update the Athena
Release Testing Order doc.
OLD: Update remote connections document in OLH.
NEW: Explore/prototype Athena release for Linux that uses native GNOME
packages.
NEW: Explore/prototype migration from locally developed login framework
to using PAM.
NEW: Discuss Solaris transition strategy.
NEW: Investigate Firefox 1.5 for possible deployment in IAP release.
NEW: Investigate automated work-around for AFS cache partitions
occasionally needing a manual fsck on Linux. (New occurrence of this
has elevated its priority.)
Next Community Milestone(s):
Expedited patch release to remedy bugs discovered when Solaris patches
went into full scale use. Patch will also include Java security fixes.
(Patch has been determined to be sufficiently important to warrant
deployment after drop date.)
Issues:
Our concern about AFS robustness has shifted. Linux seems to be
getting better, but the Solaris dialups are having problems that seem
AFS related. We are tracking and frequently taking OpenAFS updates,
and actively involved in further testing and debugging.
We are crafting a patch to remedy the timeout problem with AFS in
disconnected operation. (If you start AFS when you're off-net you hang
for a long time.)
Solaris security patches introduced two new bugs in the last Athena
patch release. This is a surprising and disturbing trend.
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 06/2005 07/2005 08/2005 09/2005 10/2005 11/2005 Delta
LINUX 700 648 798 793 768 769 +1
SUN 608 620 644 513 503 483 -20
Count of systems registered for RHN (Non Athena update):
Date 07/05 08/05 09/05 10/05 11/05 Delta
Total 599 670 723 779 841 +62
Inactive 148 180 205 243 291 +48
Active 451 490 518 536 550 +14
Monthly Athena Login counts:
Method: By reviewing of the logs of the service that makes
personalized notifications to users at login time, we are able to count
the number of unique Athena logins. Here we display the total number of
logins over a four week period, the number of logins by unique user ID
and the median number of logins per unique user ID.
Date: 05/05 06/05 07/05 08/05 09/05 10/05 11/05
Total: 300274 215206 219674 211108 316832 300252 271574
Unique: 10465 8659 8390 9890 11608 11081 10592
Median: 10 5 6 5 10 10 9
