[5481] in Release_7.7_team
7 June 2006 Athena Release Team Status Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Wed Jun 7 14:42:25 2006
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From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 14:42:08 -0400
To: owls@MIT.EDU, wdsouza@MIT.EDU, sdit@MIT.EDU
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Team Name: Athena Release Team
Report Date: 7 June 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.)
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.
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.)
PROGRESS: Investigate changing Athena Linux installer to use Red Hat
JumpStart.
PROGRESS: Investigate changing Athena Linux updater to use Red Hat
Network.
DONE: Target for June: Integrate Firefox 1.5 for deployment in a Summer
patch release possibly using stock build.
PROGRESS: (Big) Develop prototype Athena 9.9 release incorporating what
has been learned about reverting to stock software to improve readiness
for deploying lower cost Athena Release model.
PROGRESS: Qualify new hardware recommendation. Target May 1. (Much
turbulence around HP, 64bits, and budget for prototype hardware.)
DELAYED: Look into using the GNU Mailutils as an IMAP and Kerberos 5
compliant drop-in replacement for mh.
PROGRESS: Develop patch release for June including Firefox 1.5, OpenAFS
1.4.1, Solaris security patches, and miscellaneous bug fixes.
Community Milestones Met:
Other Accomplishments:
* wdc attended USENIX.
* site visits to address AFS cache partition issue happening on Solaris
systems.
* developed fix for Solaris AFS cache partition issue.
* site visit to discuss dual boot Windows and Athena cluster for Mech-E
-- see no technical obstacles to meeting their requirements.
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: 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: Investigate changing Athena Linux installer to use Red Hat
JumpStart.
OLD: Investigate changing Athena Linux updater to use Red Hat Network.
OLD: (Big) Develop prototype Athena 9.9 release incorporating what has
been learned about reverting to stock software to improve readiness for
deploying lower cost Athena Release model.
OLD: Qualify new hardware recommendation. Target May 1.
OLD: Look into using the GNU Mailutils as an IMAP and Kerberos 5
compliant drop-in replacement for mh.
OLD: Develop patch release for June including Firefox 1.5, OpenAFS
1.4.1, Solaris security patches, and miscellaneous bug fixes.
Next Community Milestone(s):
Patch release containing Firefox 1.5, Solaris AFS cache fix, Openafs
1.4.1, Solaris security patches and miscellaneous bug fixes.
Issues:
Kerberos 4 mail clients like mh, xmh, and exmh are going to die when
Kerberos 4 is shut down. Our plan is to investigate the Gnu Mailutils
as a way to offer the same functionality with Kerberos 5.
OpenAFS: We are tracking and frequently taking OpenAFS updates, and
actively involved in further testing and debugging. Update 5/10/06:
OpenAFS 1.4.1 has been officially released. We expect it is very
similar to the OpenAFS 1.4.1 Release Candidate 10 we have been running.
There is no urgency to updating. The update is scheduled after
classes and finals are over.
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.) Update 3/1/06: We are planning to incorporate this
into a patch release soon.
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.
770 linux
463 sun4
SYSTYPE 12/2005 01/2006 02/2006 03/2006 04/2006 05/2006 Delta
LINUX 744 759 773 752 755 770 +15
SUN 478 476 498 474 477 463 -14
Count of systems registered for RHN (Non Athena update):
Date 12/05 01/06 02/06 03/06 04/06 05/06 Delta
Total 872 983 1034 1041 1089 1128 +39
Inactive 316 369 404 391 424 474 +50
Active 556 614 630 653 665 654 -11
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: 11/05 12/05 01/06 02/06 03/06 04/06 05/06
Total: 271574 225346 203385 260397 257153 272762 241494
Unique: 10592 10094 9450 10322 9872 10007 9949
Median: 9 7 5 9 9 10 8
Breakdown for current month:
(Total of unique logins will be less than the sum of the sources, since
each source login only gets counted once.)
Total logins for four week period:
241494 ( other 41303 quickstation 28732 cluster 47039 dialup 124420 )
Unique logins for four week period:
9949 ( other 3400 quickstation 6205 cluster 5252 dialup 4471 )
Median logins for four week period:
8 ( other 3 quickstation 3 cluster 5 dialup 5 )
