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Inf FC6 desktop

Fri, 01/25/2013 - 15:45 - boss
Project ID: 
62
Current stage: 
5_Completed
Manager: 
squinney
Unit: 
mp-unit
What: 

Description:

Develop Inf level support for Fedora Core 6 targetting the desktop environment on i386 and, if possible, x86_64 cpu architectures. This work will form the basis of the DICE FC6 managed platform and allow other Units/COs to target FC6.

Deliverables:

This project will deliver an Inf level managed version of FC6 for i386 and x86_64 cpu architectures. This will utilise DICE authentication/authorization and name services in client mode (no local services). AFS home directories will be supported.

This will also create an FC6 platform at the LCFG level which can be utilised by groups which are external to Informatics.

Why: 

Customer:

The primary customer is the School of Informatics. There will also be external groups such as SEE and EUCS who will use the end products of this work.

Case statement:

The School of Informatics policy states that we upgrade the base DICE platform on an annual basis. This is to provide support for the latest hardware. It also provides access to the latest software for users and security updates for the various services that are managed within the school. We would normally aim to skip one release but FC7 will not be ready in time for us to commence development work if we are to upgrade machines during the summer vacation. Given the move to the new building, this year there is particular pressure to have this work completed in good time.

When: 

Status:

31/01/2007
New proposal

Timescales:

  • Managed Inf level desktop available by Friday 16th March.
  • Installable Inf level desktop available by Wednesday 4th April.
  • Commence upgrading desktops to DICE/FC6 on Monday 4th June.

Priority: High priority.

Time: Report

The project delivered FC6 on schedule, well on time for desktop deployment in June 2007. It's worth noting, however, that although the project plan allowed for 24 days of effort, the unit time figures show that 32 working days were expended
on this project. Possibly some of this time can be accounted for by work done
for porting parts of the DICE environment and support for servers.

For this release, a CSO (Carol) tested the release on all available hardware
platforms - this stage should be added to the next porting project.

How: 

Proposal:

  1. Install fc6 (1 day)
    • Standard fc6 desktop machine
    • Get onto the Informatics network.
    • Authentication with kerberos
    • Directory services from ldap.
  2. RPM repositories (0.5 day)
    • Create repository directory structure
    • Populate base, updates, extras
  3. Package lists (0.5 day)
    • Create lists for fc6 base, updates, postship
    • Create empty lists for lcfg components
  4. Essential headers (0.5 day)
    • Create any essential headers for each platform
    • Add basics to lcfg/defaults/profile.h and
      lcfg/defaults/updaterpms.h
  5. Auto-build and run tests for all LCFG components (2 days). Also auto-build:
    • openafs client support - makes porting a lot easier
    • openssh with our patches
  6. Create basic development platform (3 days)
    • Develop Inf level to create a basic profile with most components removed
    • lcfg-buildtools
    • lcfg-utils
    • lcfg-ngeneric
    • lcfg-client
    • lcfg-file
    • lcfg-inventory
    • lcfg-logserver
    • lcfg-authorize
    • lcfg-om
    • lcfg-updaterpms
    • lcfg-amd (for rpmsubmit)
    • rpmsubmit
  7. Components necessary to keep a machine LCFG managed (2 days)
    • lcfg-auth
    • lcfg-boot
    • lcfg-cron
    • lcfg-etcservices
    • lcfg-init
    • lcfg-lcfginit
    • lcfg-nsu
    • lcfg-pam
    • lcfg-syslog
    • lcfg-tcpwrappers
  8. Components for auth/authz, directory services and dns in client mode. (2 days)
    • lcfg-dns
    • lcfg-kerberos
    • lcfg-nsswitch
    • lcfg-ntp
    • lcfg-openldap
    • lcfg-openssh
  9. X support. (1 day)
    • lcfg-gdm
    • lcfg-xfree
  10. Other components, mainly just auto-build and install. (1 day)
    • lcfg-alias
    • lcfg-mailng
    • lcfg-mailcap
    • lcfg-prelink
    • lcfg-rpmcache
    • lcfg-xinetd
  11. Installation systems (4 days)
    • lcfg-fstab
    • lcfg-grub
    • lcfg-hardware
    • lcfg-install
    • lcfg-kernel
    • lcfg-network
    • Create installroot and installbase package lists
    • Build, install and test lcfg-buildinstallroot
    • Set up PXE nfs root, installer, etc
  12. Port MPU managed resources to the DICE level. (3 days)
  13. Investigate possibility of doing the FC5 to FC6 transition with an upgrade rather than a re-install.
  14. Document new platforms (2 days)
  15. Back port lcfg-buildtools to all other supported platforms
  16. Add fc6 to the list of supported platforms on the LCFG website.

Resources:

In terms of manpower resources all timescales are calculated based on the people involved being experienced in porting LCFG/DICE to new versions of Fedora.

In terms of physical resources, the current FC5 platform is using about 40GB of file space for RPMs and SRPMs. Given that we intend to support both i386 and x86_64 versions of FC6 and also that each release tends to be larger than the previous one we should look to allocating 100GB of disk space.

Plan:

Other: 

Dependencies:

All LCFG components will be auto-built to aid speedy development. We are dependent on the relevant units to test the operation and configuration of the software and sign-off each component. This should not be a block on the ongoing development work of this project but it will be required before completion.

Risks: There is a risk of FC6 being unstable in unexpected ways. Also, we are assuming in this plan that there will be no porting issues due to substantial changes in important sub-systems since FC5. The risk of not doing this work is that we will be unable to support new hardware which will block the purchase of new machines.

Milestones

Proposed date Achieved date Name Description
2007-02-12 2007-02-12 1.0 Install FC6
2007-02-13 2007-02-13 2.0 RPM repositories
2007-02-13 2007-02-13 3.0 Package lists
2007-02-13 2007-02-14 4.0 Essential headers
2007-02-20 2007-02-20 5.0 Auto-build and run tests for all LCFG components and other useful software.
2007-02-21 2007-03-01 6.0 Create basic development platform
2007-02-21 2007-03-06 7.0 Components necessary to keep a machine LCFG managed
2007-02-22 2007-03-08 8.0 Components for auth/authz, directory services and dns in client mode
2007-03-01 2007-03-12 9.0 X support.
2007-03-08 2007-03-13 10.0 Other components, mainly just auto-build and install
2007-03-27 2007-03-23 11.0 Installation systems
2007-04-10 2007-03-29 12.0 Port MPU managed resources to the DICE level
2007-04-10 2007-04-04 13.0 Investigate possibility of doing the FC5 to FC6 transition with an upgrade rather than a re-install.
2007-03-27 2007-04-03 14.0 Document new platforms
2007-06-23 2007-05-31 15.0 Test hardware support for all common hardware models.
2007-06-30 2007-06-30 17. Create documentation