Coin,

Sorry for not being talkative enough about the progress, but we were quite busy solving severals issues, and quite tired too.

=== Centralized Accounts ===

As we are now splitting services among multiple machines (in fact Elwing was also used to help Orfeo, but mostly for totaly separate services), the needed for account centralization was critical. Then we won't have to create accounts on all machines where each user needs services, and have to synchronize information (like passwords), as everything is gonna be spread automatically.

This task is not fully complete : all accounts where created in the LDAP databse, but some information needs to be added for each reactivated service. This is partly why things are taking a bit longer than expected.

=== The Web ===

Webmail / Webdesk services were quickly put back only a few days ago, as a priority. And slowly other sites were switched on.

As i said, many (lightweight) sites are now located on LeChat (RtpNet machine), so a database multi-master replication was necessary and a bit difficult to configure. Now this difficulty is over and we are switching on the other sites one by one. Don't worry about sql hostname modifications, either we are doing it for you, or we are contacting you for help.

The web migration should be over in one or two days.

== Databases ==

As said previously, MySQL is available on both Tōshirō and LeChat, meaning applications (not only websites) are easily relocatable to balance load.

Recently a PostgreSQL database was installed on Tōshirō to provide access to a more serious database software. So you may ask for an account in a few days/weeks. No replication is planned yet, so applications outside Tōshirō won't be able to access the database yet.

You may also ask for an LDAP database the same way. LDAP is being replicated on all MilkyPond hosts involded in user services.

The phpMyAdmin tool is available again, with phpPgAdmin and phpLDAPadmin, on the following URL : https://db.duckcorp.org/ Beware experienced users ! The MilkyPond LDAP database is not yet ready for user access, as we are regenerating the content frequently. So any modification would be lost forever.

Notice the sql.duckcorp.org DNS entry, and the corresponding website, are gonna disappear soon. More on new DNS hostnames later, they are still under discussion.

== FTP storage ==

Both private and public data where moved from Orfeo, except for the HurdFr public data (which will be moved in the next data move). FTP profiles where activated, as it was on Orfeo.

=== Chat ===

A new IRCd software (with its services) are gonna be tested soon. Even without services ready, we would probably switch is everything is ok, so check your notices and reconnect if you find yourself alone in the channels.

The (bip) IRC bouncer was moved to Tōshirō yesterday. Logs are available in the FTP storage.

=== Network ===

IPv6 is back online, with broker services. Our old broker IP range is now routed to Tōshirō, so you won't have to change your addresses and DNS entries, only the endpoint IPv4 address (using tb.duckcorp.org).

Filtering rules have been strengthen a bit by the way.

=== Mail and homedirs ===

Another BIG move left, is moving mail to the new architecture. Fact is we were already working on improving the routing and processing capabilities, as well as anti-spamming methods, but we are now running short of time to have all this work together well.

I won't talk about new features yet. But just give a word about the major change : the anti-spam system is being switched to the DSPAM software, which mean we would have to deal with plenty of spam until it is trained. The good news is : it should be much easier for users to manage and allow quite a lot of customizable features. It was also time to split our training database, to allow "per user" spam filtering, as we don't always agree on what is a spam or not.

As soon as it is ready, we are planning a quick move, meaning you won't be able to access your mailbox during a short period of time. Incoming mails won't be lost, as they would be taken care of be our secondary MX. I just can advise you to watch your mails at least daily, or popup on IRC, to be informed when it is happening. We will surely target late night and/or we.

Homedirs will be affected too, as we plan to move data at the same time. But this is not the only reason : Homedirs contains maildirs and sometimes mail routing configurations. We plan to : - replace procmail rules with sieve scripts - move fetchmail rules into the private section of the FTP storage and update the current script to use them, until a better solution is found If other changes/difficulties occur, we will inform you as soon as possible.

For users having procmail rules, we would be very greatful if you could help us convert your rules to sieve. We don't want to deal with your personnal mailing stuff, and this could save us a lot of precious time. Sieve is a scripting langage for mail processing, with extended features compared to procmail capabilities. It is described here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_%28mail_filtering_language%29 The mail software we plan to use does not yet implement all the Sieve language ; it is able to understand the following features: - fileinto - reject - envelope - vacation - imapflags - notify - regex - subaddress - relational Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any problem.

It is late and i may have dropped things through my strainer-memory, so i would complete this checkup in a futur post.

Oyasumi nasai !