fedora-server
LOGS
17:00:29 <pboyHB> #startmeeting fedora-server
17:00:29 <zodbot> Meeting started Wed Sep 15 17:00:29 2021 UTC.
17:00:29 <zodbot> This meeting is logged and archived in a public location.
17:00:29 <zodbot> The chair is pboyHB. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
17:00:29 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
17:00:29 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'fedora-server'
17:00:39 <pboyHB> #topic Welcome / roll call
17:00:48 <pboyHB> Welcome to our IRC meeting!
17:00:57 <pboyHB> As usual, we'll give a few minutes for folks to show up
17:01:05 <pboyHB> Please, everybody who is lurking, say either .hello2 or .hello <fasname>
17:01:14 <jwhimpel> .hello2
17:01:14 <pboyHB> I’ll post the agenda in a few minutes.
17:01:15 <zodbot> jwhimpel: jwhimpel 'John Himpel' <john@jlhimpel.net>
17:02:17 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: Welocme!
17:04:15 <pboyHB> #topic Agenda
17:04:23 <pboyHB> #link https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/server@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/A5FMNBDH5R4ADXGZYVNV7TOGIBDP3FDJ/
17:04:30 <pboyHB> 1. Follow up actions
17:04:38 <pboyHB> 2. Max size arm-32 exceeded, install media blocked (continuation)
17:04:47 <pboyHB> 3. Facilitated deployment of key services by combining rpm and Ansible
17:04:54 <pboyHB> 4. Open Floor
17:05:02 <pboyHB> Any additional topic ?
17:05:55 <pboyHB> OK. No additional topic
17:06:04 <pboyHB> #topic Follow up actions
17:06:32 <pboyHB> Only open action as of today: libvirt test day
17:06:46 <pboyHB> Unfortunately, Langdon who took this into his hands, is busy today and can't participate.
17:07:00 <pboyHB> Does anyone else got information about this?
17:08:25 <pboyHB> Obviously no information available.
17:08:38 <pboyHB> changing topic
17:08:45 <pboyHB> #topic Max size arm-32 exceeded, install media blocked
17:08:54 <pboyHB> #link https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1963007
17:09:05 <pboyHB> Latest status: there are 2 kernels included, one of the is PAE version which might be unnecessary for 32 bit ARM
17:09:17 <pboyHB> We want to check kernel before simply increase image size
17:09:17 <jwhimpel> I posted a query on the ARM list.  No one took the bait.
17:09:43 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: Yes I read the list as well
17:10:18 <pboyHB> Did someone else check the iso generation?
17:10:34 <jwhimpel> My very limited knowledge thinks one kernel is for very small SOC systems and the other kernel is for larger productional-capable ARM server boards.
17:11:42 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: Yes. One question was, doe such production grade > 4gb systems exist for ARM 32?
17:11:59 <pboyHB> and using Fedora?
17:12:05 <jwhimpel> I have no idea.
17:13:23 <pboyHB> If nobody objects, we can only just increase the size limit and don't do any quality checks.
17:14:07 <jwhimpel> There seems to be several  "nuts and bolts" ARM folks that follow on IRC.  Perhaps, I could raise the kernel issue there.
17:14:41 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: I would appreciate that.
17:15:33 <pboyHB> Cant we give a week to try to get solid information and otherwise just increase the size limit?
17:15:56 <pboyHB> I think, we can not wait undefinitely
17:15:58 <jwhimpel> Sounds reasonable to me.
17:16:57 <pboyHB> #agreed We take a week to get additional information and otherwise just increase size limit.
17:17:46 <pboyHB> #action jwhimpel contacts ARM folks again about possible ARM32 kernel issue
17:18:15 <pboyHB> #topic  Facilitated deployment of key services by combining rpm and Ansible
17:18:25 <pboyHB> In particular, to discuss: Where and how we want to make our Ansible artifacts available.
17:18:34 <pboyHB> Floor is open.
17:19:16 <jwhimpel> I am working to refactor the ansilble role to install and configure a basic wildfly instance.  It's a slow slog, but I am making progress.
17:19:48 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: Good to hear. (ehm to read) :-)
17:20:03 <jwhimpel> I still need to research ansible collections and how this effort might be distributed via ansible-galaxy.
17:21:09 <pboyHB> I suppose, as soon as we have somethint to play with, the interest about where to make it available will raise considerable
17:21:44 <pboyHB> My wish is, to keep a tight connection to Fedora Server edition.
17:23:00 <jwhimpel> It was suggested at the last meeting that it also be usable on RHEL.
17:23:32 <pboyHB> That's a good idea, I think.
17:23:44 <jwhimpel> As long as we don't have to support RHEL6, the same ansible role should work for both without too much extra effort.
17:24:04 <pboyHB> Isn't RH 6 EOL?
17:24:41 <jwhimpel> RHEL 6 has already passed several EOL milestones, but there is still some very limited support.
17:25:19 <rsc> pboyHB: RHEL 6 is currently in ELS (extended lifecycle)
17:25:22 <pboyHB> OK. But I think we can ignore RH 6. :-)
17:25:30 <pboyHB> I read somewhere that RH is building or has built a large ansible collection.
17:26:06 <pboyHB> I may try to support those versions  they support there
17:26:14 <jwhimpel> It has.  But from my limited browsing, it's rather basic.
17:26:41 <pboyHB> Well, I didn't even browse.
17:27:38 <pboyHB> But I suppose, RH should already have perfect ansible support for jBoss in place?
17:29:03 <jwhimpel> There was a recent article from RH on installing JBoss, but it involved interfacing with their subscription manager and other non-Fedora related issues.
17:30:59 <pboyHB> Good, i think we can  savely  ignore that
17:31:12 <pboyHB> Well, today nobody else seems to be ready to contribute the this topic.
17:31:27 <pboyHB> If nobody objects I switch to text topic.
17:33:08 <pboyHB> #topic  4. Open Floor
17:33:20 <pboyHB> No infos from me here.
17:33:29 <pboyHB> The floor is open.
17:35:07 <pboyHB> rsc: Thanks. Recently I tried to get a version 6 from CentOS and Scientific Linux. No luck
17:36:09 <mowest> I'm interested in hearing feedback on my email to the list about the documentation.
17:37:05 <pboyHB> mowest:  I suppose I overlooked / forgot something. Mea culpa! Can you give some hint?
17:38:43 <mowest> It is titled "Feedback on Documentation After a Fedora Server Install"
17:40:35 <pboyHB> Yes, I remember!  You are Stephan Daley, right?
17:40:41 <mowest> Yes
17:40:55 <mowest> I wrote it a few days ago
17:41:53 <jwhimpel> Right not, BTTFS is not recommended for Fedora Server.  There was a long discussion on the development email list about a month ago with pros and cons.  It was all above my pay grade to understand.
17:42:02 <pboyHB> Yes, 2 days ago
17:42:03 <jwhimpel> s/not/now/
17:42:15 <pboyHB> I didn't forget, but just managed to answer yet. A big sorry, I'm a bit swamped ( a lot of bit). It's on my todo tomorrow.
17:43:59 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: agreed about BTRFS as the general file system. But probably for specific purposes. I use it for system-nspawn containers which make use of special BTRFS functions.
17:44:52 <mowest> No worries, Peter, don't feel bad that you didn't get to my email yet.
17:45:16 <pboyHB> mowest: thanks.
17:45:20 <pboyHB> By the way, I plan to have a more detailed discussion about the progress of our documentation next meeting.
17:45:43 <jwhimpel> The section on "logging in via ssh to root", is probably a bit controversial.  Some believe logging in a root is fine.  Others believe it to be a huge security risk.  Reminds me of the vi/emacs wars.
17:46:42 <pboyHB> Yes, I think it depends on how many admins have access.
17:47:23 <mowest> jwhimpel, didn't know that about Btrfs, is that up for continued discussion in the future for server? I believe that Btrfs is a great option to be pushing for the homelab people that are looking at Fedora Server as a possible more feature rich replacement for a Synology (that uses Btrfs) or TrueNAS (uses ZFS) box
17:48:18 <pboyHB> jwhimpel: If you have 10 or more admins, loggin in as root may be a bad idea. Ig you have only 2 or if you are the only one (as in a home lab server)
17:48:47 <mowest> jwhimpel, totally agree with the not logging in as root. I didn't do that myself. I logged with with a user account that had sudo privileges and this exchanged keys using ssh-copy-id which is what most tutorials seems to encourage.
17:49:17 <pboyHB> Regarding BTRFS: The professional server people are quit conservative regarding file systems. For them security and reliablility is top!
17:49:25 <jwhimpel> It was not a final decision.  Rather, I believe it was a wait and see what (if any) issues the desktop folks experience since they are implementing this first.  Server folks are a conservative bunch.
17:49:34 <pboyHB> And BTRFS has still some issues there.
17:49:53 <pboyHB> And has some issues as a file system for databases
17:50:24 <dcavalca> pboyHB: databases work fine with nocow (which is what one should use)
17:51:14 <pboyHB> dcavalca: thanks, I didn't know that. Just have read a article written by a coreos engineer.
17:52:15 <pboyHB> And as far as I know coreos is hestent to use BTRFS
17:52:17 <mowest> Makes some sense to not have as default, perhaps it could be a separate section in the documentation if someone would like to use Btrfs, but I still feel like giving a little more guidance on a default partitioning scheme for those new to Fedora Server would be beneficial, because I felt as if I was jumping around in the docs a bit to try to figure
17:52:17 <mowest> out a partitioning scheme that would work and give me a working RAID pool.
17:53:01 <dcavalca> the main weakness in btrfs for Server is raid56, which is still experimental
17:53:06 <dcavalca> but that's being actively worked on
17:53:26 <mowest> Even if we had more detail for an LVM using xfs or ext4 as the file system, would be nice for someone new to Fedora Server.
17:53:32 <dcavalca> raid 0/1/10 works fine (or one can do 5/6 with md on top of they so desire)
17:54:31 <mowest> dcavalca, yes, I set up a RAID10 on Btrfs for my homelab experimental server.
17:54:44 <pboyHB> Another topic is separation of concerns, here separation of system and user data in to completely independent file sysstems.
17:55:36 <pboyHB> The goal is to prevent the system-wide spread of errors.
17:55:38 <mowest> Yes, I mentioned that in my email too, because I wanted to have my system separate from my data.
17:56:22 <dcavalca> fwiw, if you're using btrfs you can use subvolumes for that while keeping a single filesystem
17:56:45 <dcavalca> of course, nothing stopping you from making multiple partitions/filesystems if you prefer
17:57:38 <pboyHB> As far as I have read, subvolumes do not provide complete separation.
17:58:06 <pboyHB> dcavalca: That's my solution for the time being.
17:58:51 <mowest> dcavalca in this server, I'm using old drives that could fail. I wanted to have my system or / on one drive while having a Btrfs pool of 4 data drives so that if I had the / drive fail, I could just replace that drive with another, install Fedora Server and reconnect to the data pool. If one of the drives in the data pool failed, I could replace
17:58:52 <mowest> that and let the RAID10 rebuild. This was my thinking, not sure if that is wise or not.
18:00:25 <dcavalca> mowest: yeah, if you're using separate drives that seems fine, though it'd probably work just as well if you put / on the raid10 too and just made it a subvol
18:00:52 <dcavalca> in that case, you'd want to add to fstab the knob to allow it to boot even with a degraded array (I forgot the name offhand)
18:01:38 <pboyHB> Folks, time is up. It was a very interesting discussion in "open floor" today. Much appreciated.
18:01:49 <pboyHB> Next meeting in 3 weeks!!! Otherwise we will lose our rhythm of 1st and 3rd Wednesdays.
18:02:21 <pboyHB> If nobody objects, I'll close in2 minutes.
18:02:41 <mowest> Anyway, I'm hoping that someone who understands partitioning and files systems would be willing to write a nice "Here is a disk partitioning scheme to get you started" using whatever sane defaults this working group has determined and perhaps LVM so that those new to using Fedora as a Homelab server would have a place to start. I just found that to
18:02:42 <mowest> be overly challenging to figure out on my first install.
18:03:27 <mowest> Thanks for the great work of everyone. Thanks for letting me participate in the open floor. Have a great two weeks.
18:03:33 <pboyHB> mowest: I'll write my solutions in my answer.
18:03:51 <pboyHB> mowest: You are very welcome!
18:03:58 <mowest> Take your time, everyone is busy with real life too. :-)
18:04:20 <pboyHB> By By everybody!
18:04:35 <pboyHB> #endmeeting