Coin,
=== Thorfinn's Migration ===
Thorfinn is a Nerim VDS which is formerly used to provide western SSH
access. Unfortunately Nerim is changing its infrastructure and we have
to move to another virtualization system very quickly.
On 2013-10-07 22:00 we will attempt a switch to the new system. It may
fail and we may decide to rollback. Nevertheless we ask you to stop
important tasks and not to alter your user data from this point, so we
can sync all user data to the new system (we will not kick you out of
the old system before it is all settled). We will then reopen SSH
access as fast as possible and do the final checks. A few services may
be disturbed but nothing critical or not redundant. As usual fine
grained announcements and support will happen on IRC.
=== Quick News ===
* Toushirou's collocation is OK, we have taken over the contract and
our new partner is a serious one
* [20130626] Orfeo is now using Gbps (Toushirou a bit earlier), thanks Hivane
* mod_ruby is being removed soon (a tad overdue)
Have a Lot of FUN!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Sponsoring (sequel) ===
Hivane almost finished its migration to use the new equipments. They
also made good progress to replace Nerim's late sponsorship but
everything is not settle yet. What is affecting DC directly :
- [2013-05-15 to 2013-05-28] we had to change IPv6 addresses for all
our machines ; it was done in the most smooth way possible
- [2013-05-28 evening] LDAP problem on Thorfinn due to an IPv6
problem on Toushirou (and IPv4 fallback not working), sorry
- unfortunately we cannot continue the IPv6 broker service and mobile
IPv6 experiments until we acquire a new block ; we hope to find a
solution soon
Another bad news, our collocation at Equinix where Toushirou is located
was at stake, but fortunately we found a new partner to share the rack
space and cost ; details should be settled soon.
If you have contacts which may help us find sponsorship, please tell
us.
=== Webmail/Webdesk Migration ===
Our webdesk uses the Horde software version 3. It is old and do not
work with recent PHP version. So we had to keep and old and
security-impaired PHP to continue support it, as it was removed in the
recent Debian release.
Thus, we plan a migration to a new version very soon to get rid of this
situation. Currently a test migration was done which is available at:
https://webdesk-ng.duckcorp.org/
(beware the certificate does not match)
On 2013-06-09 we will migrate the production data again and switch the
new site to production. Until this date you can play with the test site
and report problem. Unless there is a major problem the migration will
go on as planned. Currently the only known remaining problem is with
image uploads, but we probably need to upgrade PHP in order to fix it,
or at least to debug/report the problem.
The PHP migration will perhaps also affect other softwares like our
other webmails, some needing an upgrade as well in order to support the
recent and silly changes introduced in PHP. Do not hesitate to send a
mail or message if you can still spot problems at the end of the day.
=== Web Hosting ===
mod_python was removed : it is obsolete, was not used anymore, and you
can use mod_wsgi instead.
mod_ruby is obsolete and broken, so we plan to remove it on 2013-07-06,
you can use mod_passenger instead.
=== Quick News ===
* still web (Apache) problems on Toushirou from time to time, but no
solution yet
* still XMPP problems from time to time (due to EJAB-1565, if you want
to get a hand)
* [2013-04-23] ttrss upgrade: some feature are now plugins each user
can enable on by-need basis
* [gaming] we've got a Minetest (http://www.minetest.net/) server
running now at minetest.duckcorp.org on UDP port 30000; you can create a
user using password "sevenofnine"
Well, it was a chatty one this time. Don't forget we still need
workforce and sponsoring hints, and maybe YOU can help.
Have FUN!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Sponsoring ===
Recently i told you about some difficulties our main sponsor, Hivane,
had to get its network equipement updated in order to fix several
problems getting more and more annoying. The good news is the new
equipements have been bought and should be installed in a near future.
Just let's say Hivane folks had to spend a few thousand euros from
their own pockets to get to the huge required amount needed, so if you
feel like helping a little bit, it would be much appreciated.
Seems good news cannot come alone, so i'm quite sad to tell you Nerim
is stopping all sponsoring very soon. Hivane is much concerned and is
trying hard to cope with such a loss. Thanks Nerim for the past help
and thanks Hivane guys for all their efforts. DuckCorp itself may
l00se a few things in the process, depending on how things goes well
for Hivane and how deep Nerim is cleaning things up. We'll of course
keep you in touch when we have more information.
=== Personal data Storing / Syncing / Sharing ===
A new major version of our contacts/calendar/file sharing software was
recently installed. This brings a few needed bug fixes and
improvements as well as security fixes. Unfortunately, this also bring
new problems:
- the contact application in the web interface does not work well
under Iceweasel/Firefox 10 which is in the upcoming Debian stable, but
works well in version 15 (versions beetween 10 and 15 were not tested)
- the contact application in the web interface has a major
regression[1] when using multiple addressbooks: you cannot see or
change in which addressbook a contact is in; you will have to handle
this on one of your devices (phone ) instead of the web interface.
Major improvements since the begining of the year:
* sharing was much improved and fixed
* you can now create your own private groups to easily share with
multiple contacts
* the shorty's plugin was repaired
* a new Notes plugin was added (test it and give us some feedback)
[1] https://github.com/owncloud/apps/issues/577https://github.com/owncloud/apps/issues/705https://github.com/owncloud/apps/issues/704
=== Quick News ===
* gallery spaces (quotas) have been increased \o/
* chitchat.milkypond.org is mostly working since the end of january,
but don't setup your location or
Still reading that crap? Get a life!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Migrations ===
- [2012-12-15] for fixes and security we'll try to reboot all servers
; as usual, follow announces on IRC
- [2012-12-15] PHP 5.3->5.4 was postponed because of bugs, but we'll
try again to switch on Toushirou ; on Orfeo horde is keeping us locked
with 5.3 at the moment (Horde 4 is not completely available in Debian
yet)
=== Quick News ===
- [a few days ago] Daneel, one of the backup machines, is dead. It is
not a big deal for DC, since Korutopi is working fine, but it was a
wanted redundancy. It was also running the supervision services, which
was quite useful to the admin team. A solution is being worked around.
- [recently] the WevDAV access to the Gallery folders has been fixed,
rendering access to local files useless, which is to be removed on
2012-12-29 (so check if you still have unsaved files there before it
is purged)
- [between 2012-11-21 and 2012-11-23 ] XMPP/jabber was ill and behaved
badly, it has been fix^Wsolv^Wgoodified
- [recently] for shell users: MOSH support has been added, see
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/Shell
- [during the recent months] stuff.mp.o, the contact/calendar/stuff/
webapp has been upgraded and should provide a more reliable service,
with further sharing options
=== Call for Help ===
As always, some help would be much appreciated. Money is of course
welcome, but we're still looking for another admin team member if you
think you can fill in the gap.
Another way to help us is to help our main sponsor Hivane. Hivane is
giving us connectivity between our servers with lot's of bandwidth and
a high level of customization. This year, they had a few technical
problems. It was not a big deal because they made themselves available
very quickly and fixed problems efficiently, thanks for that.
Nevertheless, they also need help to maintain their infrastructure,
and DC depends on them. If you want more details, just read this page
(in French) : http://www.hivane.net/help.html
Merry X-mas folks.
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Quick News ===
* [a while ago] we went quickly back to PHP 5.3 bacause it was causing
such a mess,, sorry for the inconvenience. migration to 5.4 is then
postponed until further notice.
* [2012-08-08] MySQL 5.1 -> 5.5 migration done, no problem
* [2012-08-08] Smarty 2 -> 3 done, no problem
* [2012-08-09] Orfeo restarted due to a short electrical outage
* [recently] the 'screen' utility was upgraded, but the new version
cannot handle the previous sessions ; use /tmp/screen-4.0.3 to reattach
your old sessions
* [WIP] the ChitChat experimental service use software we believe goes
in a bad direction. It is being replace by a similar service using the
Movim software but it is not working properly yet
=== Personal data Storing / Syncing / Sharing ===
The Stuff experimental service was seldom used, so it was shutdown and
replaced by a software with a broader goal and almost capable of the
same sharing features (except time-limited sharing, yet).
This software is to be used to manage files, contacts, calendars,
bookmarks, and more. You can use this platform to store data, share it
with other persons (with people outside DC too), and sync it on your
devices (mobile phones…). See
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/OwnCloud for more
information.
Have a Lot of Cold Showers!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Quick News ===
* [2012-04-*] bugs and problems with our DNSSEC system may have caused
DNS issues during this period, sorry about that
=== Maintenance ===
Toushirou is being rebooted this next sunday in the afternoon in order
to add some more RAM. It should not be long but a disk check may
lenghten things a bit.
Affected services :
- all web services except mail-related ones and IRC on Web
- FTP
- NS2
- MX2
- DICT server
- all VCS
- MySQL
- IPv6 tunnels
- NSTX
- Shell (but Thorfinn is available for such usage)
Be fine.
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
Hope this new year be sweet to you :-).
=== Quick news ===
* new web service for code and patch review:
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/CodeReview
* new features in the news web reader (https://gossip.duckcorp.org/):
** more mobile phones should be supported
** ability to share news using a public URL (without authentication)
* reworked and improved services documentation (not yet finished):
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services
=== New Backup Box ===
Thanks to Arnau, we've got a new backup box to complement Daneel,
named 'Korutopi'.
Daneel had not enough storage to handle the growing data on our
machines (which is shared with Duck's personal backup), and still has
a very limited bandwidth. Korutopi has got an IPv6-only connectivity
and a better bandwidth.
Korutopi is meant to relieve Daneel of certain heavy parts of the
backup but not all, and duplicate critical data. The configuration is
currently WIP.
=== Mail Improvements ===
We have been told the antispam retraining methods are not always very
handy, especially when using a webphone. So we have worked on a new
retraining method using a magic folder, which will trigger retraining
when you move mails in or out. This is not an original solution, but
it was not workable with our resources until some recent work was done.
Upcoming change:
* [2012-02-04/05] the 'Junk' folder will become magical and the new
method will then be available to everybody; if you already used this
folder name for another usage, you will have to rename it, sorry
* [2012-02-11/12] the default delivery method and filtering rules will
change to have this new retraining method as default, which will
provide a simpler default mail configuration for newcomers and basic
users (but this will not affect power users' configuration, and they
may adapt themselves their configuration to use this method)
To learn more on this topic, please read:
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/Mail
That's All Folks!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Quick News ===
* [2011-10-29] the RoundCube webmail was upgraded, bringing
improvements among which: IMAP ACL support (see previous news on the
subject) and a better address book
* [2011-11-07] PostreSQL was upgraded to 9.1, which should bring new
features[1] and performance enhancement; currently the
'standard_conforming_strings' setting was restored to the old
behavior, mais check your apps, as it will soon switch back to its new
and legitimate behavior
* [2011-11-12] our antispam system (DSPAM) was upgraded, with a few
fixes and much better international(-ization) support in the web
interface: pages are now fully multilingual (UTF-8) compliant and mail
subjects (and mail content in the quarantine page) in various foreign
langages are now properly displayed (recoded); beware only mails
coming into the system after this software upgrade are concerned by
this improvement, but it should not be long before it is buried past
* [since 2011-10-10] due to sponsoring problems, Jinta is unavailable
and will probably not return; this has little impact, but we now lack
a secondary IRC server
* [2011-11-29] our new IRC web interface, irconweb-ng.duckcorp.org,
replaced irconweb.duckcorp.org completely, as it is working nicely and
the old system had a few boring bugs (like not always seeing
disconnections); thus irconweb-ng has been renamed into irconweb, and
the old system removed
[1] http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.1
=== Nuke ===
It's really high time we restart our machines to recent kernels, but
as it is quite sensitive, it was postponed many times. Here is the
blessed schedule:
* [2011-12-04] Toushirou, affects web (everything but mail-related
websites), FTP, VCS, MySQL, IPv6 tunnels, NSTX, shell (but Thorfinn is
available), DNS (backup only), mail (relay only)
* [2011-12-11] Thorfinn, affects shell (you can switch to Toushirou in
the meanwhile), IRC proxy and bots, Jabber (but Orfeo should handle)
* [2011-12-18] Orfeo, affects mail, webdesk, DNS (but Toushirou should
handle), IRC (including IRC2IM gateway), Jabber (but Thorfinn should
handle), PostgreSQL, LDAP (but other nodes should handle in read-only
mode)
Beware a lengthy disk check is likely to happen, which is necessary
from time to time, and we may need to reboot more than once for
technical reasons, so please be patient.
The exact maintenance time will be advertised on IRC, as well as when
the system is safe to use again.
See you soon if we survive !
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
No, the admin team is not spending all his summer time lazing around
on the beach ;-).
=== Quick News ===
* [2011-07-05] fixed ICQ/AIM problems with minbif
* [2011-07-11] IRC bouncer has SSL support (and is now SSL-only)
* [2011-08-19] spam-retrain(a)duckcorp.org special address was not
accepting mail from invalid domains, it is now fixed
* photos.dc.o is HTTPS (only) now
* certificates problems on milkypond.org sites have been fixed
=== New Web Services ===
Web 42.0 is trendy nowadays, so we tried to provide free-software
powered and privacy-strong equivalents to the market's most used
services. The choice of these services and softwares were quite
influenced by the FreedomBox[1] project.
You can now play with:
* chitchat.milkypond.org: a "XMPP on web" service powered by
Jappix, with emerging "social" features
* gossip.duckcorp.org: a web RSS reader powered by Tiny Tiny RSS,
fetching your feeds while away so you can browse them later smoothly
* stuff.milkypond.org: a file sharing service powered by Jyraphe
* irconweb-ng.milkypond.org: another "IRC on web" software powered
by qwebirc, which we hope would be more stable than CGI::IRC (and may
replace it completely in the future)
* webstats-ng.duckcorp.org: a web analytics service powered by
Piwik (which may replace Awstats for all web stats in the future)
These service should be stable, and should stay if at least one user
remains. We may have setting to polish but you should not experience
too much disruption while we update them.
To use these services, you need to login with your LDAP account,
except for irconweb-ng which is public. Specific requirements :
* chitchat requires a XMPP/Jabber account, you may ask us one
* webstats-ng is only useful if you have websites hosted by DC and
requires to add a minor JS code to each site to collect data (see
documentation in the web interface and on the Piwik website)
Please also note that 'stuff' only requires authentication for
uploading, not for downloading, so you may give away your magic URLs
to anybody.
[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/FreedomBox
Have a Lot of FUN !
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
Here is a special news edition to talk about a new project: get a bit
more help from you to improve our services.
Working as a DC administrator is not always a sunbathing trip on the
beach and we did not receive much applications from people willing to
join us despite our calls for help. So instead of getting heavily
involved in the project, you may still help us from time to time for
specific tasks.
We started listing a few tasks we lack time to handle. They are of
different kinds and most can be handled at home without any
privileges. Tasks have been added to a specific project here:
https://projects.duckcorp.org/projects/dc-ducklings-volunteer-activities
Most tasks are intended to generate contributions to the Free Software
community.
If you want to contribute, please log into the software with your LDAP
account. Then, unfortunately, you would not have rights to apply for a
task by yourself, as LDAP groups are ignored by the software (task!),
so you need to contact us _once_ to fix it. Afterwards, you can claim
a task and start working on it, asking for details and writing down
progress on the issue tracker itself.
Hope to see you soon!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
