[arch-devops] Devops meeting summary - 09/10
Hi All, I'm sending the summary of yesterday's meeting: Mirroring of Arch Linux Archive runner2.archlinux.org becomes ger.mirror.pkgbuild.com use all PIA boxes as public mirrors for Archive AND repos Sven will be in handle of these Gitlab PoC Gitlab is running, we need to re-package keyclock for better security, anthraxx will handle this. Planet migration Make planet.archlinux.org part of archweb Mailman 3 Ask fedora regarding their mailman migration Create a package and test migration - Jerome will look into this Blocker https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/issues/343 Lack of overview of services/hosts Deferred Twitter Deferred Forum migration It was decided to migrate it to a VPS and then move to discourse. Possibly with SSO already. Soyuz retirement We are going to point internal mirroring to repos.archlinux.org Create new server and migrate content for public_html. Getting a storage box instead of vostok Move to storage box for backups (create a kanban ticket and figure out automation). We currently pay 30 euros Backup the archive Requires a larger backup server (currently 1.2TB free on vostok) Offsite backups Decide if borg will handle it or we are doubling the backup with another tool. Settle on external service: borgbase glacier online.net cold storage dedicated server I have summed up a few things for clarity, but I guess it covers what we've discussed. Regards, Giancarlo Razzolini
On 10/11/19 1:32 PM, Giancarlo Razzolini via arch-devops wrote:
Offsite backups
Decide if borg will handle it or we are doubling the backup with another tool. Settle on external service:
borgbase glacier online.net cold storage dedicated server
just wanted to suggest something - i'm a borg user for $work and personal, and https://backupsy.com/ has some pretty good storage/cost ratios (make sure you snag the 40% off-for-life coupon code at the top right). it's slow as shit sometimes so your initial sync might take a bit of time, but subsequent ones shouldn't be too bad (since borg is incremental) and the price for that amount of storage is pretty hard to beat. HTH. -- brent saner https://square-r00t.net/ GPG info: https://square-r00t.net/gpg-info
Em outubro 14, 2019 19:39 brent s. escreveu:
just wanted to suggest something - i'm a borg user for $work and personal, and https://backupsy.com/ has some pretty good storage/cost ratios (make sure you snag the 40% off-for-life coupon code at the top right). it's slow as shit sometimes so your initial sync might take a bit of time, but subsequent ones shouldn't be too bad (since borg is incremental) and the price for that amount of storage is pretty hard to beat.
HTH.
We are still deciding if we are going to use borg for this off site backup or not. Or we can even use borg to one of these borg services and another tool for backing up to another place at the same time, if it's cheap enough. The idea is not to depend on only one tool/location. Regards, Giancarlo Razzolini
On 10/14/19 8:08 PM, Giancarlo Razzolini via arch-devops wrote:
Em outubro 14, 2019 19:39 brent s. escreveu:
just wanted to suggest something - i'm a borg user for $work and personal, and https://backupsy.com/ has some pretty good storage/cost ratios (make sure you snag the 40% off-for-life coupon code at the top right). it's slow as shit sometimes so your initial sync might take a bit of time, but subsequent ones shouldn't be too bad (since borg is incremental) and the price for that amount of storage is pretty hard to beat.
HTH.
We are still deciding if we are going to use borg for this off site backup or not. Or we can even use borg to one of these borg services and another tool for backing up to another place at the same time, if it's cheap enough.
The idea is not to depend on only one tool/location.
Regards, Giancarlo Razzolini
got it- thanks for the clarification, giancarlo! i should note that backupsy (i promise i'm not paid by them) gives you root access to a VM instance with whatever distro you choose (running Arch on mine for the personal one!), so it's not specific to borg- it can be rsnapshot, backuppc, bacula, plain ol' rsync, whatever. the primary point i wanted to make was the pricing/storage factor. excited to see what y'all end up going with! -- brent saner https://square-r00t.net/ GPG info: https://square-r00t.net/gpg-info
On 19-10-11 14:32, Giancarlo Razzolini via arch-devops wrote:
Forum migration
It was decided to migrate it to a VPS and then move to discourse. Possibly with SSO already.
I'm just wondering what the thought progress behind this was/is. Is the current fora getting a bit long in the tooth? Why was Discourse picked, and what are other alternatives that were considered? Since you mentioned SSO, I assume the devops team are looking into having multiple services (wiki, bugtracker, aur, etc) all using the same credentials? Regards, George Rawlinson
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 09:49, George Rawlinson via arch-devops < arch-devops@lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
I'm just wondering what the thought progress behind this was/is. Is the current fora getting a bit long in the tooth? Why was Discourse picked, and what are other alternatives that were considered?
After further discussion on IRC, my understanding is that this should read as we're going to move FluxBB to a new server, then *discuss* options for replacing it (possibly with Discourse), but that decision hasn't been made yet.
On 10/15/19 at 10:42am, Phillip Smith via arch-devops wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 09:49, George Rawlinson via arch-devops < arch-devops@lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
I'm just wondering what the thought progress behind this was/is. Is the current fora getting a bit long in the tooth? Why was Discourse picked, and what are other alternatives that were considered?
After further discussion on IRC, my understanding is that this should read as we're going to move FluxBB to a new server, then *discuss* options for replacing it (possibly with Discourse), but that decision hasn't been made yet.
Yes, we first want to migrate fluxbb to a new server. Currently it's not managed in Ansible and still on luna. Luna should also be retired in the future but first we have to ansible the AUR and figure out what to do with cgit :-) -- Jelle van der Waa
The below feedback has been solicited from the current Arch Linux Forum
team in October 2019, based on the premise that the DevOps team desires to
replace the current forum software.
The points have been summarized for readability, and anonymized to ensure
the points are considered based on their merit alone.
Our preference is that a demo system is set up prior to a final decision
being made so we can evaluate the moderation tools available to assess
their suitability for our community behaviors.
General Criteria
===============
* I hope that we will stick to simple and not deviate too far from the
functionality of a basic forum.
* I would opt for disabling all unnecessary features
* I am very skeptical of any system of community voting for relevance.
* The forum should remain a technical resource and not devolve into
karma farming.
* I would also strongly oppose any sort of obligatory 2-factor
authentication.
* Reasonably good functionality on limited bandwidth and/or text-mode
browsers.
* I would like better tools to help identify duplicate accounts
* Perhaps tools that can auto-detect behavior such as post blanking when
it starts.
* I'm not a fan of endless scrolling or javascript "features" either,
and I don't see any point of social media things like "likes" on a
technical support forum.
* KISS.
* One of the things that I hate most in the world is continuous scroll
down rather than pagination.
* Functionally, FluxBB does everything I expect a forum software to do.
* It shouldn't contain post-voting facilities
* I dislike sub-threading where one can reply to other posts inline. If
reddit is any indication it leads to incredibly messy and hard to follow
discussions.
* I liked myBB and misago the most from some quick browsing through the
examples.
* Based on several criteria above, Discourse seems like a particularly
poor fit for our community.
* "Oh dear god, anything but discourse."
Alternatives
===============
phpBB
* https://www.phpbb.com/
* Seems still actively developed.
* Is listed on some "top 10" forum software for 2019 sites.
* It is very similar to fluxBB.
Thredded
* https://thredded.org/
* It is actively developed
* Free & open-source
* Has a 'modern' visual style (while being readily
customizable/themeable)
Can be used with a SSO
Paginates
Demos I've found load quickly and are easy to read on a TUI.
MyBB
* https://mybb.com/
* Maintained
* Has an LDAP plugin.
Farum
* https://flarum.org/features/
* Seems to be similar to discourse; claims to be lightweight.
* Has SSO, API, and Anti-spam.
* Still beta release.
Vanilla
* https://open.vanillaforums.com/
* Maintained
* Open-core/Freemium model.
* Has SSO.
Misago
* https://misago-project.org/
* "Looks OK from a bit of playing around on their site. Not sure what
moderation tools look like."
Discourse
* https://www.discourse.org/
* There seems to be a lot of bells and whistles that increase its
complexity but I have no experience with it.
* Discourse ... design philosophy seems to be in the mindset of catering
to the majority who have high powered systems, good network connections,
and "modern" (GUI) browsers. The Arch community has always seemed to work
hard to not needlessly marginalize those who have limited bandwidth, old
hardware, or text-mode browsers; so the use of a tool like discourse
strikes me as either antithetical to our existing community ethos, or a
sign of a significant change in direction.
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 23:19, Jelle van der Waa
On 10/15/19 at 10:42am, Phillip Smith via arch-devops wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 09:49, George Rawlinson via arch-devops < arch-devops@lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
I'm just wondering what the thought progress behind this was/is. Is the current fora getting a bit long in the tooth? Why was Discourse picked, and what are other alternatives that were considered?
After further discussion on IRC, my understanding is that this should read as we're going to move FluxBB to a new server, then *discuss* options for replacing it (possibly with Discourse), but that decision hasn't been made yet.
Yes, we first want to migrate fluxbb to a new server. Currently it's not managed in Ansible and still on luna. Luna should also be retired in the future but first we have to ansible the AUR and figure out what to do with cgit :-)
-- Jelle van der Waa
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 00:49, George Rawlinson via arch-devops < arch-devops@lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
On 19-10-11 14:32, Giancarlo Razzolini via arch-devops wrote:
Forum migration
It was decided to migrate it to a VPS and then move to discourse. Possibly with SSO already.
I'm just wondering what the thought progress behind this was/is. Is the current fora getting a bit long in the tooth? Why was Discourse picked, and what are other alternatives that were considered?
FluxBB upstream support and maintenance is doubtful at this point and probably going to decrease only from this point forward. We considered many alternatives but basically, it turns out that there's only really NodeBB and Discourse. Just to be clear: We're also unhappy about that fact but it doesn't seem like many people are developing modern forums anymore. However, we're also unhappy with the security implications of an unmaintained FluxBB. Additionally, it doesn't seem to do SAML or OpenID Connect-based auth either, so we'd have to hack that in.
Since you mentioned SSO, I assume the devops team are looking into having multiple services (wiki, bugtracker, aur, etc) all using the same credentials?
Yes. We have quite a ton of services now and would like to have fewer credentials facilities.
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 11:11, Sven-Hendrik Haase via arch-devops < arch-devops@lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
FluxBB upstream support and maintenance is doubtful at this point and probably going to decrease only from this point forward. We considered many alternatives but basically, it turns out that there's only really NodeBB and Discourse. Just to be clear: We're also unhappy about that fact but it doesn't seem like many people are developing modern forums anymore. However, we're also unhappy with the security implications of an unmaintained FluxBB. Additionally, it doesn't seem to do SAML or OpenID Connect-based auth either, so we'd have to hack that in.
What about phpBB? It appears to still be maintained (last release 20th Sept), and it appears to support LDAP for SSO.
Em outubro 14, 2019 19:48 George Rawlinson via arch-devops escreveu:
I'm just wondering what the thought progress behind this was/is. Is the current fora getting a bit long in the tooth? Why was Discourse picked, and what are other alternatives that were considered?
Since you mentioned SSO, I assume the devops team are looking into having multiple services (wiki, bugtracker, aur, etc) all using the same credentials?
Fluxbb isn't maintained anymore it seems and we want to avoid security issues. We have done a lot of research and discourse is the *least* worse option. SSO is intended for everything at some point, but this will take a long time to happen (hopefully not *that* long) and will happen incrementally. There's a lot of discussion still happening on that front and not is 100% defined yet. Regards, Giancarlo Razzolini
participants (6)
-
brent s.
-
George Rawlinson
-
Giancarlo Razzolini
-
Jelle van der Waa
-
Phillip Smith
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Sven-Hendrik Haase