[1718] in SIPB_Linux_Development
"Minutes" of meeting on 17 June 1997
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Wed Jun 18 15:42:31 1997
To: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Date: 18 Jun 1997 15:42:10 -0400
In attendance:
svalente, nygren, fastcart, amu, warlord, sit, mhpower, jmmikkel
Topics to discuss:
What are going to do for the next Linux-Athena release?
What problems are we going to fix?
What software are we going to develop or upgrade?
How do we want the install to work?
Major problems:
Partially-connected machines (athena.init runs at runlevel
2; it shouldn't. Neither should named).
Network dependency: Currently Athena depends on the network
and will hang if its not there. Make sure Athena deals when the
network isn't there (so the machine will boot).
Questions:
Installation method: RPM vs. SPM. How do we want the Athena
portion to get installed from small-gods? Do we want to provide an
SRVD? What about syncing the srvd to the machine? Lots of good
discussion happened. Basically, we decided to use RPM (even though it
would mostly mean we couldn't use 'mkserv' to bring things local) and
we'd modify the install program to remove the ability to easily
install 'everything'.
New software:
PAM: We wont need to replace /bin/login; we can just
add the Athena PAM module(s) and login,passwd,ftp etc. will all
work with Athena accounts.
Athena inetd? Some people want more cluster-like Linux
machines. This will allow us to support access_on/access_off and we
wont need to add things to /etc/inetd.conf (although we'll still need
to commend out some flagrant security holes).
mkserv?
The results:
1) Make a release based on RedHat 4.2 (or newer if something else comes
out) which will be complete and available before R/O.
2) These things should get done for the next release. The next release
should be complete and tested by mid-August (which means these tasks
should be done before then, the sooner the better)
"RPM Space" (emil, amu)
* Provide an SRVD-based system (at the user's choice). This
will get installed via a series of RPMS which contain symlinks.
* The Athena RPMS will be re-organized to remove unnecessary
dependencies (e.g. ktelnet depends on ttylogin).
* Each "RPM" will consist of two RPMS which anti-depend on
each other. One will contain symlinks into /srvd, the other will
contain the actual files from the srvd.
* Make sure all files in the SRVD are contained in at least
one RPM (and make a script that checks this and prints out
inconsistencies, files that exist in one place but not the other)
"PAM" (warlord)
* Get PAM working; try to separate 'kerberos' from 'hesiod'
from 'attach' -- make them different modules or keep them combined?
The consensus seemed to be finer granularity was better. Make sure
/bin/login works; try to get passwd working. Make sure local password
can be different from kerberos password.
"Athena Inetd; Access_o{n,of}" (amu)
* Try to port Athena inetd, access_on, and access_off to
Linux.
"Install program" (warlord)
* remove "everything" option from the list of components
* create various configurations with various sets of local
vs. SRVD package combinations (e.g., 'Athena-srvd',
'Athena-srvd-local-client', 'Athena-srvd-local-server',
'Athena-local')
"Quazi-Connected Machines" (fastcart, jmmikkel)
* Get partially-connected machines (tether/laptops) working
* Figure out how to hook athena into PPP/PCMCIA infrastructure.
3) Time permitting, we should consider importing 8.1 packages. But
the above action items are higher priority and should be completed
prior to importing 8.1 code.
If you were not assigned an action item but want to help, ask someone
who was assigned an action item.
If you have other action items to add to the list for the next
release, send them to the list.
The next meeting (yet to be scheduled) will be held sometime around
the 2nd week in July. We'll figure out timing closer to that date.
-derek
--
Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL N1NWH
warlord@MIT.EDU PGP key available
