[5394] in Release_7.7_team
4 January 2006 Athena Release Team Status Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Wed Jan 4 15:11:17 2006
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From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 15:11:14 -0500
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Team Name: Athena Release Team
Report Date: 4 January 2006
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:
DELAYED: Develop Disconnected Athena documentation. (Disconnected
operation has been recognized as important again.)
DELAYED: 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. (Still awaiting news from Red Hat.)
PROGRESS: Discuss project plans for long term Athena work.
DELAYED: Finish Solaris 10 installer integration for summer's Athena
full release.(Still awaiting server upgrade.)
PROGRESS: Tweak Linux Athena install to install 9.4 directly rather
than as an update from 9.3.
CHANGED: Update Linux Athena install to be based on RHEL 4 to handle
new hardware. (Becomes: Investigate changing installer to use Red Hat
Network.)
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.)
DONE: As part of update of Athena Release web pages, update the Athena
Release Testing Order doc. (We merged what little there was of it that
was accurate into the page that originally pointed at it.)
DELAYED: Update remote connections document in OLH.
PROGRESS: Explore/prototype Athena release for Linux that uses native
GNOME packages.
DELAYED: Explore/prototype migration from locally developed login
framework to using PAM.
PROGRESS: Discuss Solaris transition strategy.
DONE: Investigate Firefox 1.5 for possible deployment in IAP release.
(Not going to do it on that timeframe. It's too risky.)
PROGRESS: Investigate automated work-around for AFS cache partitions
occasionally needing a manual fsck on Linux. (We have a new idea on how
to do this.)
Community Milestones Met:
Expedited patch release to remedy bugs discovered when Solaris patches
went into full scale use (including Java security fixes.)
Other Accomplishments:
* Miscellaneous bug fixes.
* Much time spent with friends and family over the holidays.
Next month's goals:
ONGOING: Testing and bug fixing of current Athena release.
OLD: 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. (Still awaiting news from Red Hat.)
OLD: Discuss project plans for long term Athena work.
OLD: Finish Solaris 10 installer integration for summer's Athena full
release.(Still awaiting server upgrade.)
OLD: Tweak Linux Athena install to install 9.4 directly rather than as
an update from 9.3.
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: Update remote connections document in OLH.
OLD: Explore/prototype Athena release for Linux that uses native GNOME
packages.
OLD: Explore/prototype migration from locally developed login framework
to using PAM.
OLD: Discuss Solaris transition strategy.
OLD: Investigate automated work-around for AFS cache partitions
occasionally needing a manual fsck on Linux. (New occurrence of this
has elevated its priority.)
NEW: IAP Patch release including updates to Solaris 10 and RHEL 4 and
kerberos-enabled version of gaim.
NEW: Investigate changing Athena Linux installer to use Red Hat Network.
NEW: Target for June: Integrate Firefox 1.5 for possible deployment in
a Summer patch release.
Next Community Milestone(s):
IAP patch release.
Issues:
December, with all the holidays, is often a month where less gets
accomplished.
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.)
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.
Summary: We see a downward trend on Athena systems, but it is unclear
if those systems are re-emerging as RHN systems or simply going
offline.
SYSTYPE 07/2005 08/2005 09/2005 10/2005 11/2005 12/2005 Delta
LINUX 648 798 793 768 769 744 -25
SUN 620 644 513 503 483 478 -5
Count of systems registered for RHN (Non Athena update):
Date 07/05 08/05 09/05 10/05 11/05 12/05 Delta
Total 599 670 723 779 841 872 +31
Inactive 148 180 205 243 291 316 +25
Active 451 490 518 536 550 556 +6
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: 07/05 08/05 09/05 10/05 11/05 12/05
Total: 219674 211108 316832 300252 271574 225346
Unique: 8390 9890 11608 11081 10592 10094
Median: 6 5 10 10 9 7
