[IAEP] Status of server move?

[Bernie Innocenti]

(let's keep this threas on the list so others can step in
with their suggestions)

Ivan Krstić wrote:
> On Jul 17, 2008, at 8:37 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
>> Do you need anything from me or Bernie to start? Here is some info
>> about the services:
> 
> You should pick when you'd like to have the downtime, and then I'll  
> need someone with access to the existing machine to 1) disable the  
> existing wiki, 2) tar up the MediaWiki install and include a database  
> dump, and 3) copy it over to solarsail.
> I'll handle setup from there.  
> A tarball of the existing planet setup and API docs should be produced  
> and copied over at the same time.

The current host because it's the same machine that runs internal and
public services of my former company in Italy.  I still have
root access there as a trusted friend, but I can't grant it others.

I could handle the move to Solarsail from here, and hopefully there's
will not be a noticeable downtime period.  The only issue is how long
it will take for the DNS to refresh.


> I'll also immediately set up mail handling on solarsail, and then  
> it'll be a matter of Bernie updating the MX records for sugarlabs.org.

Sure.  There are plenty of aliases to be moved too.  I use qmail, so
I guess we'll have to convert them to /etc/aliases for Solarsail.


> Once all of this is done, the only thing left to figure out is  
> backups.

I think backups should be #1 item, before we start putting valuable
data on Solarsail and investing time on configuring services.


> I recommend we initially just set up rsync backups to  
> Develer,

Over this slow link, we can only sync a few 100's MBs each day.
I'd feel much safer if we could have a full live backup that would
bring us back to production within a few hours from the worst
possible disaster.

The only thing it takes is a $50 SATA drive fitted in any server
within MIT operated by a friendly sysadmin.


> and then move over to Tivoli on a more relaxed schedule, once  
> we have some time to investigate it. How does that sound to everyone?

I have no personal experience with Tivoli, therefore I have no idea
whether it can be trusted more than the simple, versioned rsync cron
job that I'm used to do.

I read some documentation and I'm not at all impressed.  But if you
say it's robust and worth using, then I trust your judgment on this.

-- 
   \___/  Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
  _| X |  Sugar Labs Team  - http://www.sugarlabs.org/
  \|_O_|  "It's an education project, not a laptop project!"