[544] in I/T Delivery
Pismere Project Status Report as of 7/31
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas L. Thornton)
Mon Aug 6 17:32:32 2001
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 17:32:30 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200108062132.RAA07182@the-rim.mit.edu>
From: "Thomas L. Thornton" <tomt@MIT.EDU>
To: delivery@mit.edu, integration-ptl@mit.edu, dennis@mit.edu,
ganderson@mit.edu, rar@mit.edu, vkumar@mit.edu
Cc: pismere-team@mit.edu
Project Name: Pismere Delivery, Integration
Team Members: Danilo Almeida, Joe Calzaretta, Qing Dong,
Paul Hill, Wael Hishmeh, Dave Tanner, Tom Thornton
Report Date: 6 Aug, 2001
Submitted by: Tom Thornton
URL: http://web.mit.edu/pismere
Accomplishments in July
-----------------------
Pismere has some news regarding deployment. There are three new
machines within IS with two more planned. We expect to set up a new
cluster of a dozen machines in Building 37 in mid-November.
In order to support Pismere users, Tom resumes meeting with members of
the Support process with Greg's help.
Watchmakers are up to speed and very productive. We have emacs
running out of a locker, plus installers for Netscape and FileZilla,
an ftp application using GSS.
Wael has all servers patched with the latest critical updates. He has
the new backup/file server/build machine, fin, debugged to work with a
raid unit.
A new version of the Moira database includes a machine ID and fixes a
bug on multiple home locker entries. New populator code supports the
machine container. It is under test on the test Moira server, and
perhaps can go live before beginning of term. The MMC snapin is
redone to support container.
We have new services for dcm and moving machines across containers,
which includes the ability to programmatically sync the DCs.
We made new settings for group policy software distribution, setting
time, and AD replication.
The latest pismere image and assigned software includes:
New AFS
Netscape
VirusScan
Office
SecureCRT
We use and distribute a new cygwin locker.
Danilo and Jeff put new certificate code in production.
There is much new documentation and code repository maintenance.
There are new Plop and winzephyr beta releases. Winzephyr is
redesigned in configuration dialogs and settings files. This is
coordinated with the SWRT.
Goals for August
----------------
We still have three top priorities:
1. Install user apps;
2. Maintain and account for DC sysadmin;
3. Transition to Service teams.
Item 1. includes supporting DUSP, hoping to get help building user
apps in AFS.
For Item 2, we made progress in documenting administration, but need
to work on source code tagging and automated event log processing.
Item 3 requires follow-up on our initial meetings with ASO and
support.
Additionally we want to:
- Sync our AFS code with OpenAFS via CMU.
- Contact OSP as a possible admin pismere site.
Longer Term Goals
-----------------
- Get help from Garry and TomC to put non-null Kerberos instances into
Moira.
- Generic ftp requirements.
- Release Zephyr, Plop.
- Generic logging library proposal - package NT syslogger for other
schools, and get tech pubs help from here or a requesting school.
- We need to do further work to populate AD attributes, such as white
pages info, from the MIT data warehouses.
- Continue planning post-pilot work.
- Work with MS to customize RIS.
Issues
------
- Providing a collection of enduser apps will be the primary
difficulty in making Pismere machines useful.
- Support and Service staffing plans are finally underway, yet
indefinite.
- When does the AUI Dash & gnome require Pismere revision?
