fedora-server
LOGS
17:00:46 <pboyHB> #startmeeting fedora-server
17:00:46 <zodbot> Meeting started Wed May 19 17:00:46 2021 UTC.
17:00:46 <zodbot> This meeting is logged and archived in a public location.
17:00:46 <zodbot> The chair is pboyHB. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
17:00:46 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
17:00:46 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'fedora-server'
17:00:58 <pboyHB> #topic Welcome / roll call
17:01:00 <cyberpear> .hi
17:01:00 <zodbot> cyberpear: cyberpear 'James Cassell' <fedoraproject@cyberpear.com>
17:01:08 <pboyHB> hi everyone!
17:01:13 <swefredde> HI
17:01:28 <pboyHB> I hope i'm in the right meeting room today!
17:01:38 <dcavalca> .hi
17:01:39 <zodbot> dcavalca: dcavalca 'Davide Cavalca' <dcavalca@fb.com>
17:01:40 <pboyHB> Sorry for my mistake last week.
17:01:53 <pboyHB> As usual we should give a few minutes for folks to show up.
17:01:54 <swefredde> .hello2
17:01:55 <zodbot> swefredde: swefredde 'Fredrik Arneving' <fredrik.arneving@bahnhof.se>
17:02:13 <pboyHB> Everybody who is lurking, please say either  .hello2  or .hello <fasname> , too. I hope it works again.
17:02:22 <pboyHB> I’ll post the agenda in a few minutes.
17:03:04 <pboyHB> hi cyberpear! hi swefredde!
17:03:13 <Eighth_Doctor> .hello ngompa
17:03:15 <zodbot> Eighth_Doctor: ngompa 'Neal Gompa' <ngompa13@gmail.com>
17:03:20 <Eighth_Doctor> yay it works today
17:03:53 <jwhimpel> .hello
17:03:54 <zodbot> jwhimpel: (hello <an alias, 1 argument>) -- Alias for "hellomynameis $1".
17:04:17 <jwhimpel> .hello2
17:04:18 <zodbot> jwhimpel: jwhimpel 'John Himpel' <john@jlhimpel.net>
17:04:54 <pboyHB> #topic Agenda
17:05:04 <pboyHB> 1. Welcome
17:05:10 <pboyHB> 2. Agenda
17:05:18 <pboyHB> 3. Issue release composition
17:05:24 <pboyHB> 4. Planning for next Fedora release(s)
17:05:32 <pboyHB> 5. Fedora release criteria and process
17:05:38 <pboyHB> 6. Open Floor
17:05:49 <pboyHB> #topic 3. Issue release composition
17:05:58 <pboyHB> As I understand we are still waiting for the data.
17:06:04 <pboyHB> I’m not overwhelmingly overwhelmingly familiar with these procedures.
17:06:11 <pboyHB> Do we hjave to do something? Or can we just wait?
17:08:12 <swefredde> Can't help you there since I'm new. What data are we talking about?
17:09:35 <pboyHB> Currently we create 2 different install iso due to space limitation. We consider to accept a larger full install image to make both idtentical. But have to check, how much it is.
17:09:53 <pboyHB> But I take the silence as: we can just wait.
17:10:04 <pboyHB> So, next topic
17:10:22 <pboyHB> #topic 4. Planning for next Fedora release(s)
17:10:31 <pboyHB> We specified in PRD:
17:10:38 <pboyHB> 1. Improved support for off-premise Kickstart and pxe installation
17:10:45 <pboyHB> 2. Facilitated and improved support for using Base Cloud Images
17:10:51 <pboyHB> 3. Providing easy installation and pre-configuration for key services with Ansible
17:10:58 <pboyHB> 4. Easy integration into multi-node environments with tools like Ansible
17:11:07 <pboyHB> 5. Buildup of a renewed documentation on Fedora Server specific topics
17:11:40 <pboyHB> We discujssed about it 2 weeks ago without a decision and detail planning,
17:11:48 <pboyHB> Any ideas? Floor is open
17:12:29 <Eighth_Doctor> I'm waiting for a response from releng on the release composition thing
17:12:58 <swefredde> What exactly does off-premise Kickstart mean?
17:14:39 <pboyHB> I'm not sure. As to my knowledge, install medium oder net install without further manual interaction. It's already possible, but not really easy.
17:14:46 <jwhimpel> swefredde The server is off-premise and wants/needs to use the kickstart file to tailor the installation process.
17:15:03 <pboyHB> I think it was nirik or smooge who suggested it.
17:15:13 <swefredde> But where is the PXE server then?
17:15:44 <pboyHB> Setup a pwe is part of that, I suppose. But I'm not an expert in that area..
17:16:18 <swefredde> I kickstart fedora33 at home and I'm used to ansible so those two topics are the most likely for me to contribute to. But I've never even thought about off-premise kickstarts
17:16:36 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: do you have more information?
17:17:04 <dcavalca> off-prem kickstart, if I understand what you mean right, still requires the same kickstart infra for netbooting
17:17:14 <pboyHB> swefredde: Great!
17:17:23 <dcavalca> the only main difference is that tftp is hell over lossy links
17:17:32 <dcavalca> so if you can use HTTP that's a lot better
17:17:41 <dcavalca> but it should all just work about the same
17:17:52 <dcavalca> not really sure what we should do there for fedora server tbh
17:18:33 <jwhimpel> When one has a server farm hosted off-site and there is a need to tailor the installation.  I believe kickstart and pxe are compatible.
17:18:40 <pboyHB> dcavala: We could provide documentation, scripts / Ansible to set up the environment, ...
17:19:27 <dcavalca> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/rawhide/install-guide/advanced/Kickstart_Installations/ isn't server specific but it applies pretty much the same
17:19:45 <jwhimpel> Remember you have to have a running and configured server to provide pxe services.  How do you start a remote server farm from scratch is the issue.
17:19:58 <dcavalca> can't help with ansible, but yeah, having a playbook to setup dhcp and friends for this seems sensible
17:20:43 <pboyHB> dcavalca: ++
17:20:50 <dcavalca> jwhimpel: tbh, if you're managing a farm you'd probably want to use something like cobbler or foreman, unless you're building out the whole infra from scratch
17:21:30 <pboyHB> I've a small server farm (just 14 servers) but never managed to do it via pwe or alike. I alwys walk to the housing center. grrrrr
17:21:40 <Eighth_Doctor> cobbler is probably a good lightweight solution
17:21:53 <Eighth_Doctor> https://cobbler.github.io/
17:22:00 <swefredde> Off-premise sounds very much like cloud to me and then you probably prefer an image and cloud-init tweaks ??
17:22:19 <Eighth_Doctor> well, it depends
17:22:20 <dcavalca> fwiw, I do this at home with dnsmasq + httpd, but I would not recommend that setup in production :)
17:23:06 <jwhimpel> dcavalca: I use ansible.  But I have lots of SA experience.  Most SOHO sites do not have that luxury.  It would be nice to  have "canned" playbooks to install/configure services so they don't have to spend very limited funds on expensive "talent". :-)
17:23:07 <dcavalca> swefredde: it could also just be that you have a rack of servers in a colo on the other side of the ocean and still want to be able to reprovision them as needed
17:23:28 <King_InuYasha> cloud-init generally requires hypervisor awareness in some way
17:23:39 <King_InuYasha> I don't think you can expect that from most server datacenters
17:24:06 <King_InuYasha> (an aside... this is just Eighth_Doctor from IRC instead of Matrix)
17:24:09 <King_InuYasha> .hello ngompa
17:24:10 <zodbot> King_InuYasha: ngompa 'Neal Gompa' <ngompa13@gmail.com>
17:24:14 <King_InuYasha> things are being weird today
17:24:37 <swefredde> I can help someone producing "canned" playbooks if the person in question can explain what I need to know to get started.
17:25:08 <pboyHB> swefredde ++
17:26:17 <pboyHB> Proposal: We set up a wiki subpage and add ideas abd plans? I could set up a first draft.
17:26:32 <swefredde> +1
17:27:40 <pboyHB> #agreed: wiki subpage for off-premise boot et. al.
17:28:02 <King_InuYasha> cobbler + ansible sounds like a nice starting point :)
17:28:17 <King_InuYasha> I think the cobbler folks would be happy to collaborate, given their roots as a Fedora project :)
17:28:52 <pboyHB> #action: pboy will set up a first version of subpage about "Improved support for off-premise Kickstart and pxe installation"
17:29:40 <pboyHB> Any ideas about items 2 - 4?
17:29:54 <pboyHB> I'm interested in installation of application servers as wildfly.
17:30:04 <pboyHB> An usual rpm is not possible. No distro has it, too much work.
17:30:16 <pboyHB> Could we make a kind of wildfly-install-helper rpm ?
17:30:26 <pboyHB> It sets up the infrastructure, esp. systemd, and a script the admin can use to install wildfly.
17:30:43 <pboyHB> Very much alike postgresql dbinit?
17:31:01 <pboyHB> Would it be compatible with Fedora policy?
17:31:50 <dcavalca> my understanding is that the state of java packaging in fedora isn't awesome, so getting this packaged properly would probably be tricky
17:32:21 <pboyHB> Addendum: With script I mean Ansible
17:32:29 <dcavalca> does wildfly provide prebuilt containers? maybe that could be a stopgap option in the meantime
17:33:31 <dcavalca> oh, this was packaged at some point, though it's now retired: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/wildfly
17:34:00 <pboyHB> dcavalca: There is a big discussion about containers and several solution.  But not everywhere a container is a good solution.
17:34:22 <dcavalca> pboyHB: oh I completely agree, a native package would be the preferred option
17:34:34 <pboyHB> dcavalca: Yes, but it got never ready.
17:34:43 <dcavalca> but unless someone who's familiar with both wildfly and java packaging signs up to do it I don't see it likely to happen
17:34:49 * dcavalca hasn't really touched java since college :)
17:34:51 <pboyHB> It's the same issue other distros have.
17:35:58 <pboyHB> I think, first we have to make sure, such a rpm is OK with Fedora policy.
17:36:19 <jwhimpel> The state of java packaging is really pretty bad in Fedora.  The only stuff that is current is the stuff required for FreeIPA.  I will try to "ping" the java mailing list for suggestions on containerizing various services.
17:36:23 <pboyHB> There is a rpm to setup systemd in copr. So the work would be not so much.
17:37:16 <Eighth_Doctor> helper rpms are not allowed in fedora generally
17:37:20 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: I'm not so pessimistic. Maybe we can meet in Jave as well?
17:37:41 <pboyHB> Eighth_Doctor: What a pitty!
17:38:26 <pboyHB> Could we provide an Ansible script? Would that be allowed?
17:38:43 <jwhimpel> I will ping the Fedora email list in the next couple of days and report back any responses next week.
17:39:04 <Eighth_Doctor> pboyHB: ansible stuff sure
17:39:23 <pboyHB> Nice!
17:39:26 <Eighth_Doctor> but ansible collections and things should be referencing packages rather than random stuff
17:40:41 <pboyHB> What do you mit with random stuff?
17:41:20 <Eighth_Doctor> basically, the idea is that packaged ansible roles should leverage Fedora content
17:41:25 <Eighth_Doctor> same as packaged containers do
17:41:31 <Eighth_Doctor> err Fedora containers do
17:41:55 <pboyHB> Hm, that's difficult if there is no package. :-)
17:42:38 <pboyHB> How can we then support the use of such application containers?
17:43:26 <pboyHB> Currently, it's something like Wild West. Everyone has a private solution.
17:45:38 <swefredde> Are there any other linux-system-roles planned for Fedora?
17:45:41 <jwhimpel> When I have inquired about Wildfly/JBoss to RedHat in the past, I was often referred to COPRs that were built from non-rpm packaged sources.
17:47:00 <pboyHB> swefredde: An idea is to support / implement some of the roles that are in the github project. But no specific ideas yet.
17:48:00 <pboyHB> Probably it would be helpfull to study the existing scipts and to select 1-3 and find out, what we can make with it in Server?
17:50:01 <pboyHB> Suggestion: We reserve one of the next discussion on Ansible?
17:50:43 <swefredde> +1
17:50:55 <jwhimpel> +1
17:52:00 <pboyHB> #agreed: Dedicate on of the next meeting to discuss Ansible in Fedora Server
17:52:43 <pboyHB> jwhimpel & swefredde. could you help me to set up a subpage on our wiki?
17:53:09 <pboyHB> where we can collect ideas and possible solutiopns
17:53:19 <jwhimpel> Sure.  But my wiki-foo is non-existant.
17:53:27 <swefredde> Well, as long as it's not about off-prem kickstart... :-)   Sure
17:53:56 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: I know about wiki, but not that much about Ansible. :-)
17:54:27 <pboyHB> #action: pboy, swefredde jwhimpel set up a wiki page for further discussion
17:54:48 <pboyHB> We are running out of time. Therefore
17:55:02 <pboyHB> #topic 6. Open Floor
17:56:06 <pboyHB> Here comes the usual question: Would anyone like to take over the chair for the next meeting?
17:58:25 <pboyHB> OK. That means:
17:58:42 <pboyHB> #agreed: next chair pboy (again)
17:58:54 <pboyHB> Time is up!
17:59:03 <pboyHB> See you next week again.
17:59:29 <pboyHB> In the mean time we hopefully meet at #fedora-server
17:59:55 <pboyHB> Bye bye and thanks to everyone.
18:00:03 <swefredde> Sure. You'll send an email about what you want me to help you with, right? I'm not logged in to IRC that much.
18:00:47 <pboyHB> swefredde: Yes, we should communicat by email. It's easier as IRC for complex issues.
18:01:02 <swefredde> Good, Bye then!
18:01:18 <pboyHB> #endmeeting