Dev Week -- Introduction To The ServerTeam -- Mathias Gug -- Mon, Feb 18
(03:00:38 PM) mathiaz: after a couple of rather technical session about development, I'd like to take some time to present the Ubuntu Server Team. (03:00:48 PM) waves is now known as InsClusoe (03:00:58 PM) ***eddyMul waves (03:01:12 PM) mathiaz: who we are, what we're doing, and how you can get involved with the Server Team. (03:01:21 PM) nxvl_work: mathiaz: did you want me to handle the cuestions? (03:01:23 PM) nxvl_work: questions* (03:01:42 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: if you could relay the questions from u-c-c it would be appreciated (03:01:50 PM) nxvl_work: ok (03:01:57 PM) nxvl_work: just ask if you want one (03:01:58 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: thanks. :) (03:02:07 PM) mathiaz: So who is the server team ? (03:02:29 PM) mathiaz: you can find most of the information on our wiki pages : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam (03:02:32 PM) nxvl_work: if i apear to be dead im on bathroom, just be patient (03:03:06 PM) mathiaz: I've been part of the server team for almost a year now (03:03:41 PM) mathiaz: and most of the people I've seen getting onboard share a common interest in server related software. (03:04:36 PM) mathiaz: As a consequences we also tend to be interested in setups and configuration found in corporate enviornments, such as directory services (ldap and AD domain), web services or network authentication. (03:05:16 PM) mathiaz: Let me introduce some key people to the server Team (by alphabetical order): (03:05:29 PM) mathiaz: Adam Sommer, aka sommer (03:05:35 PM) mathiaz: He is our documentation guru. (03:05:51 PM) mathiaz: He's taken the task to review (03:05:53 PM) mathiaz: and update the Server Guide for Hardy. (03:06:27 PM) mathiaz: Thus he is also involved with the Documentation team. (03:06:47 PM) mathiaz: Ante Karamatić - another long time contributor to the server team, ivoks. (03:07:11 PM) mathiaz: Member of the MOTU team, he did some work on the apache package and the bacula package. (03:07:47 PM) mathiaz: Chuck Short - zul - he maintains xen. (03:08:05 PM) mathiaz: Kees Cook and Jamie Strandbodge are our security gurus. (03:08:22 PM) mathiaz: They are the ones that keep your system safe at night ;) (03:08:43 PM) mathiaz: They've started the Security Team recently: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam (03:08:55 PM) mathiaz: Michael Behrens - faulkes- (03:09:09 PM) mathiaz: A recent contributor coming from the forums. (03:09:30 PM) mathiaz: He's taken the role of the Forum Ambassador. (03:09:47 PM) mathiaz: He's been lurking in the forums for quite some time and works on providing feedback from the Server forum. (03:10:08 PM) mathiaz: Mathias Gug - mathiaz. Well that's me. (03:10:31 PM) mathiaz: I've been doing some work on AppArmor and trying to get the Ubuntu Server Team up and running. (03:11:04 PM) mathiaz: Neal McBurnett - long time contributor and interested in documentation and virtualization (such as Ubuntu JeOS). (03:11:38 PM) mathiaz: Rick Clark - dendrobates. He is the techinical manager of the Server Team at Canonical. (03:12:04 PM) mathiaz: Scott Kitterman - mainly interested by mail services. (03:12:09 PM) mathiaz: if you're interested in (03:12:10 PM) mathiaz: postfix or clamav he is the man to talk to (03:12:36 PM) mathiaz: He is also an active member of the MOTU team and became a core-dev recently. (03:12:55 PM) mathiaz: Soren Hansen - soren - our virtualization specialist. (03:13:34 PM) mathiaz: He brought cool virtualization technology in Ubuntu for Hardy. (03:13:52 PM) mathiaz: He is gonna run a session on this topic tomorrow IIRC. (03:14:15 PM) mathiaz: So - these are some key people from the team and I've forgotten many others. (03:14:25 PM) nxvl_work: mathiaz: tomorrow at 17 UTC (03:14:45 PM) mathiaz: As you can see the group has a broad range of interests. (03:15:09 PM) mathiaz: And most of use are actively involved in other teams of the Ubuntu project. (03:15:38 PM) mathiaz: This is one of the caracteristic of the Server Team: we all share a common interest in server technologies, but have differents skills. (03:16:01 PM) mathiaz: Being part of the team often means representing the Server Team in other areas of the Ubuntu project. (03:16:34 PM) mathiaz: Being a contributor to the server team can be taken under different roles: (03:16:55 PM) mathiaz: The helper answers questions on the ubuntu-server mailing list and the #ubuntu-server irc channel. (03:17:24 PM) mathiaz: This is usually the first step and easiest one to take to start contributing to the server team. (03:17:43 PM) mathiaz: Triagers digg into bugs the ubuntu-server LP team is subscribed to. (03:18:12 PM) mathiaz: Out LP team is a bug contact for a list packages, such as samba, openldap, mysql or apache2. (03:18:25 PM) mathiaz: The current list of packages can be found here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-server/+packagebugs (03:19:05 PM) mathiaz: The list will be expanded soon as soon as we've setup a dedicated mailing list for ubuntu-server bugs. (03:19:48 PM) mathiaz: Usually we decide to target our efforts for bug triagging to one or two package for a week and discuss the outcome of our triagging effort during our weekly meeting. (03:19:55 PM) mathiaz: The focus for this week is openldap. (03:20:17 PM) mathiaz: Version 2.4 has been uploaded a couple of weeks ago and bugs have been filled as people start testing this new major version of openldap. (03:20:38 PM) mathiaz: So if you have some experience in directory services, you can help us right now. (03:20:52 PM) mathiaz: This is a great way to start with the LP bug tracker and doesn't require any knowledge of programming languages. (03:21:06 PM) mathiaz: We're working closely with the BugSquad team - triaggers participate on the bugsquad mailint lists. (03:21:26 PM) mathiaz: And once in a while with have the honor of having our own HugDay where the whole bug triagger community helps us. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad/ (03:22:08 PM) mathiaz: Once bugs have been triagged, it's time to fix them. (03:22:08 PM) mathiaz: This is when the packagers (03:22:14 PM) mathiaz: come into the game. (03:22:21 PM) mathiaz: This role requires an interest in packaging. (03:22:45 PM) mathiaz: We maintain a list of bugs that are easy too fix: https://bugs.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-server/+mentoring (03:23:27 PM) mathiaz: These fixes can make their way easily into the ubuntu repositories via the sponsorship process (03:23:33 PM) mathiaz: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SponsorshipProcess (03:24:10 PM) mathiaz: Doing work on the packaging front leads to a close a collaboration with the MOTU team and is a great way to gain experience to become a MOTU. (03:24:20 PM) mathiaz: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU (03:24:57 PM) mathiaz: Another role that kicks in on a regular schedule are the testers. (03:25:18 PM) mathiaz: New features and new packages needs to be tested before released for wide spread consumption. (03:25:33 PM) mathiaz: Thus we organize test plans. (03:25:59 PM) mathiaz: For example, likewise-open has been uploaded to universe. (03:26:30 PM) mathiaz: It provides AD directory integration. However there are lot's of different AD setups. (03:26:53 PM) mathiaz: So we'll setup a test plan to keep track of the results. (03:27:17 PM) mathiaz: If you have access to an AD domain, installing ubuntu and testing you can join the domain with likewise-open is an easy way to contribute to the Server Team right now. (03:27:40 PM) mathiaz: Testing plans are coordinated with the Ubuntu QA Team - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam (03:27:53 PM) mathiaz: Testers are taking an important role when we're about to ship a new milestone or release. (03:28:14 PM) mathiaz: We're responsible for ensuring that the ubuntu-server isos are working correctly, which involves performing a dozen of tests for three isos. (03:29:01 PM) mathiaz: We use the isotesting tracker from the QA team to track the results. The more testers we have, the less tests each of us has to do and results are posted faster. (03:29:16 PM) mathiaz: Server hardware support is another area where testing is important. (03:29:48 PM) mathiaz: We're trying to make sure that ubuntu can used on the main server hardware, so if you have access to such hardware, popping a cd into the machine, installing a standard ubuntu server and reporting that whether it has sucessfully installed or failed is an easy way to contribute to the server team. (03:31:03 PM) mathiaz: An additional process to the testing of a feature is documenting it. (03:31:20 PM) mathiaz: That's the role of the Documentors. (03:31:45 PM) mathiaz: Browsing the ubuntu-server mailing list archive, lurking in the #ubuntu-server irc channel or going through the forum posts shows patterns in user's questions. (03:32:05 PM) mathiaz: Recurring themes are identified and turned into documentation. (03:32:19 PM) mathiaz: A wiki page in the community section of help.ubuntu.com is first created. (03:32:30 PM) mathiaz: Once the quality has improved, a new section is added to the server guide. (03:32:40 PM) mathiaz: All this work is undertaken by the Documentors of the Server Team. (03:32:56 PM) mathiaz: Collaboration with the Documentation team is done on a daily basis to achieve consistency with other help ressources. (03:33:03 PM) mathiaz: Adam Sommer started to update and review the Server guide for Hardy. (03:33:26 PM) mathiaz: The document is maintained in a bzr tree - helping adam will introduce you to docbook and distributed version control with bazaar. (03:33:50 PM) mathiaz: There is also the option to go over server related wiki pages on the community help pages. (03:34:38 PM) mathiaz: A good starting point is the Server page that has pointer to lots of howtos. (03:34:42 PM) mathiaz: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Servers (03:35:20 PM) mathiaz: And the last role in the Server Team are the Developers. (03:35:37 PM) mathiaz: they develop new features, usually specified during the Ubuntu Developer Summit that takes place at the begining of each release cycle. (03:35:49 PM) mathiaz: Tracked by a blueprint we have around 3 months to get a new feature into ubuntu. (03:36:03 PM) mathiaz: For hardy, virtualization, iscsi and windows integration have been some of the features integrated. (03:36:16 PM) mathiaz: Now that Feature Freeze is in place, we've moved our focus to testing and bug fixing. (03:36:38 PM) mathiaz: Thus the developers won't be very active until we release hardy at the end of april. (03:36:55 PM) mathiaz: As you can see, contributing to the Server Team can be undertaken in more than one way. (03:37:07 PM) mathiaz: It usually involves a lot of interaction with other teams from the Ubuntu project. (03:37:30 PM) mathiaz: It's also a good way to show your contribution to Ubuntu and thus helps getting Ubuntu membership. (03:37:44 PM) mathiaz: The GettingInvolved page gives an overview of the roles I've talked about above. (03:37:55 PM) mathiaz: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/GettingInvolved (03:38:12 PM) mathiaz: So - how do we work ? (03:38:23 PM) mathiaz: We track our progress on the Roadmap and meet once a week to discuss outstanding issues. (03:38:33 PM) mathiaz: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/Roadmap (03:39:02 PM) mathiaz: We use the ubuntu-server mailing and #ubuntu-server to coordinate our activities, discuss policy change in the team. (03:39:17 PM) mathiaz: Joining the ubuntu-server team on LP is simple as subscribing to the ubuntu-server mailing list and applying for membership on LP. (03:40:25 PM) mathiaz: The ubuntu-server team is one of the easiest way to start getting involved in Ubuntu development. (03:41:36 PM) mathiaz: So If you already know which role you'd like to contribute as, you can find a list of tasks in the Roadmap. (03:41:50 PM) mathiaz: Don't hesitate to ask one of the team members involved in your area of interest. (03:42:17 PM) mathiaz: Refer to the key people I've listed above. (03:42:38 PM) mathiaz: Most of the information related to the ServerTeam can be found in the ServerTeam wiki pages: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam (03:43:04 PM) mathiaz: If you're overwhelmed by all the available information and you're lost, come talk to me - mathiaz on irc or mathiaz@ubuntu.com. (03:43:30 PM) mathiaz: I'll help getting started. (03:43:58 PM) nxvl_work: mathiaz: ready for questions? (03:44:03 PM) mathiaz: Well - that's all that I wanted to say about the server team. (03:44:08 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: yes - please go ahead. (03:44:14 PM) nxvl_work: <eddyMul> QUESTION: can you talk a bit about canonical "Landscape"? (03:44:53 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: This is a product in beta mode developed by a team within canonical. (03:45:22 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: I'm not actively involved in the project so I don't really know much about it. (03:45:45 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: you can contact nijaba - he should be able to give more information. (03:46:35 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next (03:46:36 PM) nxvl_work: <Unksi> QUESTION: Any estimates how many servers run Ubuntu, as Ubuntu is quite new player in the server market (Compared to Debian, Red Hat and other big distros on the server field) (03:46:53 PM) nxvl_work: <Unksi> QUESTION: What are the main differences with Ubuntu Server edition and Debian? What makes it worth to run Ubuntu instead Debian, except the "Ubuntu Spirit"? (03:47:22 PM) nxvl_work: this 2 ones are basically related (03:47:28 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: I don't have an estimate. We've seen a rising number of ubuntu server adoption. (03:47:34 PM) Unksi: ok (03:48:38 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: we're based on Debian, which is a very strong technical platform. (03:49:06 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: within the server team, we're working well with Debian and most of our changes are merged by in Debian. (03:50:05 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: Ubuntu provides guaranted security updates, even thought Debian is doing an excellent work on this front. (03:50:34 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: Ubuntu, via Canonical, is also more easily approachable by companies. (03:51:18 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: there is a partner's program available and propritary software can be integrated in Ubuntu via this channel. (03:53:35 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: as for rates of adoption, there is the Alfresco borometer that gives some numbers about the adoption of ubuntu in that community. (03:53:41 PM) mathiaz: Unksi: http://www.alfresco.com/community/barometer/ (03:53:55 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next. (03:53:56 PM) Unksi: ok, thank you (03:53:56 PM) nxvl_work: <pwnguin> QUESTION: Is server edition appropriate for beowulf clusters? (03:54:55 PM) mathiaz: pwnguin: certainly. One great asset of ubuntu server is that the basic install is small. (03:55:14 PM) mathiaz: pwnguin: so customizing it for your specific cluster needs is easier. (03:55:39 PM) mathiaz: pwnguin: there is also the preseeding mechanism available for mass intallation. (03:56:25 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next (03:56:29 PM) nxvl_work: <shujin> QUESTION: Is there anyone looking into the Ubuntu Home Server idea? (03:57:15 PM) mathiaz: shujin: it depends what you mean by Ubuntu Home Server. I assume you refer to using a web interface to manage your box. (03:57:29 PM) mathiaz: shujin: there is work done to integrate ebox. (03:57:51 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next. (03:57:55 PM) nxvl_work: <eddyMul> QUESTION: can you talk more about isotesting tracker? (03:58:33 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: the isotesting tracker is a website used by the QA team and the release when we're about to publish a new iso. (03:59:01 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/ (03:59:25 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: it's also used by other teams such as the mozilla team to keep track of testing for new builds. (03:59:57 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: basically, it's a list of tests and sucess/failure results. (04:00:01 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next. (04:00:05 PM) eddyMul: mathiaz: interesting. will dig into this a bit more.... (04:00:08 PM) nxvl_work: <cap10morgan> QUESTION: Are there plans to do other works-out-of-the-box style setups w/ the server installer like the LAMP installation option? (I'm thinking things like NT domain / AD controller, assuming Samba et. al. are up to the task) (04:00:35 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: this a work in progress. (04:01:06 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: we've already added 5-6 tasks during gutsy: samba server, postgresql server, mail server to name a few. (04:01:30 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: hopefully we'll be able to join a domain soon at install time. (04:02:09 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: now that likewise-open has been published in universe, it needs more testing. (04:02:14 PM) cap10morgan: soon as in hardy or hardy+1? (04:02:28 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: and once it's move to main, we can integrate into the installer. (04:02:44 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: it depends how well the testing goes. (04:02:48 PM) cap10morgan: ok (04:03:16 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: if we have a lot of tests and we're confident that likewise-open is stable, then we can try to move it to main for hardy and get it into the installer. (04:03:38 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: however we're already past FeatureFreeze - so things are more complicated. (04:03:45 PM) cap10morgan: so what you're saying is, i should help test likewise-open :) (04:03:52 PM) mathiaz: cap10morgan: yes. (04:03:55 PM) mathiaz: and other too :) (04:04:11 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next (04:04:13 PM) nxvl_work: <crevette> QUESTION: Don't you feel this is an hard task, to have only 6 months cycle to provide a server distribution; aimed on reliability; when others (debian, RH) take several years without releasing a version (04:04:51 PM) mathiaz: crevette: that's why we've introduced the concept of LTS releases. (04:05:19 PM) mathiaz: crevette: companies are looking for a fixed schedule so that they can plan their upgrade. (04:05:48 PM) mathiaz: crevette: in the case of debian, it's hard to know when the actual release will be done. (04:06:15 PM) mathiaz: crevette: in the case of RH, they've introduced new features in their service packs (or whatever it's called) (04:07:24 PM) mathiaz: crevette: As we're preparing for an LTS release, we've also been more conservative in the changes we've implemented for this release. (04:07:55 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next. (04:07:58 PM) nxvl_work: <mzungu> QUESTION: Will hardy be a direct upgrade for a server currently running dapper, or does it have to go through edgy->feisty->gutsy? (04:08:14 PM) mathiaz: mzungu: dapper->hardy will be supported (04:08:32 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next (04:08:35 PM) nxvl_work: <eddyMul> QUESTION: how different is Ubuntu JeOS default install from Ubuntu Server Edition's default install? (04:08:53 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: the main difference is in the kernel flavour installed. (04:09:28 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: JeOS installs a the -virtual flavour, which is a kernel that hasn't all the drivers available. (04:09:47 PM) eddyMul: is JeOS optimized for Xen? KVM? (04:09:54 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: the installed system is also smaller - only the -base seed is installed IIRC (04:10:22 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: Not that I remember of. (04:10:34 PM) mathiaz: eddyMul: I think it has the open-vm-tools available. (04:10:36 PM) sergevn: mathiaz: So JeOS is meant for inside an virtual machine, not as host OS? (04:10:54 PM) mathiaz: sergevn: yes - JeOS is tuned to run a guest. (04:11:19 PM) mathiaz: sergevn: hardy server will have great support for virtualization as a host. (04:11:36 PM) eddyMul: thanx, mathiaz & sergevn (04:11:43 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next ? (04:11:44 PM) nxvl_work: <leonel> QUESTION: Can it be added a LAPD ( Linux Apache PostgreSQL Django ) to tasksel like theres a LAMP ? (04:11:51 PM) nxvl_work: one more left and we are done (04:12:36 PM) mathiaz: leonel: I'm not sure it's such a common scenario. We don't want to have a list of hundreds of profile available during installation. (04:13:16 PM) mathiaz: nxvl_work: next (04:13:18 PM) nxvl_work: <shujin> QUESTION: This may be off topic, but any reason eBox was chosen over Webmin? (04:13:20 PM) nxvl_work: las one! (04:13:27 PM) nxvl_work: last* (04:13:41 PM) mathiaz: !webmin | shujin (04:13:41 PM) ubotu: shujin: webmin is no longer supported in Debian and Ubuntu. It is not compatible with the way that Ubuntu packages handle configuration files, and is likely to cause unexpected issues with your system. See !ebox instead. (04:14:10 PM) eddyMul: mathiaz, ubotu: nice! :) (04:14:28 PM) nxvl_work: thats why i love ubotu (04:14:32 PM) shujin: ouch, I have a 15 servers running webmin (04:14:41 PM) mathiaz: Well - I think that's all for today. (04:14:50 PM) shujin: thanks mathiaz! (04:14:57 PM) mathiaz: Thanks for attending this session about ubuntu server team (04:15:04 PM) eddyMul: thanx, mathiaz (04:15:05 PM) Unksi: mathiaz: thank you :) (04:15:14 PM) mathiaz: it's also the last session of the first day of the Ubuntu Developer week. (04:15:17 PM) eddyMul: and nxvl_work, too (04:15:21 PM) ***nxvl_work waves (04:15:31 PM) mathiaz: There is more to come during the whole week. (04:15:53 PM) nxvl_work: and dances \o> <o> \o/ <o/ \o> (04:15:53 PM) mzungu: thanks mathiaz (04:16:02 PM) sergevn: mathiaz: Where can I find more info about the Ubuntu Week? (04:16:06 PM) holloway: mathiaz, thank you for the view about your team :) (04:16:15 PM) arturodr: thanks (04:16:16 PM) mathiaz: soren will talk about virtualization tomorrow and dholbach about MOTU. (04:16:30 PM) mathiaz: More information: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek (04:16:42 PM) mathiaz: sergevn: ^^ (04:17:03 PM) arturodr left the room (quit: Remote closed the connection). (04:17:11 PM) eddyMul left the room (quit: "Ex-Chat"). (04:17:24 PM) InsClusoe: Thanks to all of you Ubuntu folks... (04:17:39 PM) mathiaz: Thanks all - and I hope to see you soon onboard the Ubuntu Development team ! :)