CAcert System Admins discussion list

[Daniel Black <daniel AT cacert.org>]

On Wednesday 26 August 2009 21:30:12 Ian G wrote:
...
> Ernie, how about:
>
> 8.  "SLA."  Are you taking full responsibility for the replacement of
> faulty parts?
> What sort of replacement time can we expect?
> Do you or can you provide a backup space on an alternate machine (VM)?
> (Interacts with 4.)
thanks for wording this.

> >> 6. Is debian (VM enabled) available for an initial install?
> >
> > I agreed to a centos host with xen capabilities for installing host OSes.
>
> OK, but is PG, WvdR and others OK with that?

the only statement by PG about the moving of infrastructure has been this 
one: 
https://lists.cacert.org/wws/arc/cacert-sysadm/2009-03/msg00029.html

WvdR - nothing explicit though has mentioned that distro choice is about 
solving the problem and unilaterally constraints are a bad thing (forgive the 
crude paraphrasing from a memory of and email). Xen is in use on the hopper.

Others - Christopher has objected so I'll give my rational below.

The number of additional staff with diverse skills has provided us the scope 
to 
diversify slowly. The good development of platform independent like puppet 
will support a slightly diverse environment when we get there.

> Up until now, debian has been used for everything.

not quite true. OpenSuSe is use for hopper and Centos is being used for 
logging. 

> I've no vote on it either way, but I would
> like to see a purposeful decision here,
(or the sysadmin list)
> because what we don't want is a
> proliferation of Linux distros and a flavour of the month war.
I feel comfortable that I can ignore the war words from non-volunteers and 
have comfortably accommodated the diversity of current adminstrators and the 
needs to have some consistancy of infrastructure.

> Commonality is important for continuity.
true but I don't want a totally psychophysiology discussion.

Reasons for CentOS:
* it was proposed by IDL and they said they would install harden it for us 
(hey one less task for us todo)
* though we will be managing the box having a familiar OS available to IDL to 
give them temporary access to diagnose/verify/validate network/hardware 
faults 
could be handly.
* overall we need it to have a SSH services and start/create VMs. We don't 
have any particularly niche requirements here.
* if we are going to receive backup/restoration services having a OS 
consistent to other deployed in IDL will speed installation and fault finding.

-- 
Daniel Black
Infrastructure Administrator
CAcert

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