Meeting started at 2025-03-12 18:00:11 UTC

The Meeting name is 'fedora-server'

As usual, let's wait a moment for everybody to show up.

I'll post the agenda in 2-3 minutes.

!hi

John Himpel (jwhimpel)

Welcome John. It's sometimes a nightmare with the timezones :-)

!hi

Steve Daley (mowest)

Don't know how long I can stay, busy day.

John Himpel: We decided last meeting to come back to the NFS Ansible project next week, so we have a bit longer time to test the actual code. Do you think you can manage to join next week? Or is it better to wait for another date?

Hi mowest!

Well, I think we should start now and see, how it goes.

Anything to add?

Peter Boy I should be able to make the meeting next week.

Thanks! So I will plan for a longer time for this topic.

Can we determine the meeting time now that Daylight Savings has begun in the US?

OH, I wasn't aware of the change!

Yes, we use to follow the US change and will have 1 oe 2 adjustments for the European membvers.

Just changed in US "Spring Forward" so today's meeting is an hour later than usual.

Yes, er have to switch back to 17:00 UTC from now on.

Do we still agree to switch to 17:00 UTC so it will be the same local time for everybody?

For me personally it doesn't really help me if it is changed or not, in some ways this current time an hour later is better for me.

But I will still try to make it if it is changes to be an hour earlier.

mowest: Thanks. I think we should discuss any deviation very carefully.

Let's start.

Regarding the action, nothing new. See

Nothing new here from me. Any comment?

I see none. Therefore

Nothing from me.

The podcast scheduled for yesterday is delayed, probably for one week. Due to staff shortage.

So we have the opportunity to check, if someone else would like to join me (or do it alone).

mowest: I think it would great if we could team up. You worked a lot on the survey. And it would we great if you give input to the podcast., I think.

When would it be rescheduled for?

There is no date fixed until now. We are quite flexible, because IT-Guy would record our talk and send it later.

Is this time of day the best for you?

I have a pretty flexible schedule except when meetings or visits or appointments are preplanned in the calendar.

For me this time is fine, but some hours later (max about 6) would be fine for me, too.

I have no fixed appointments at this time (all my appointments are earles when the US is sleeping :-) )

My evenings get full with meetings or my sports games with the family, but I can be pretty flexible in the afternoons like at this time depended on the day. I know that Thursdays would not work, but other days have more flexibility.

OK, that's great. I think, we should continue on the podcast channel an schedule a new date.

John Himpel: What about you?

I'm suffering from a bad knee right now. Getting upstairs to my computer is quite a chore. So I am trying to limit my computer usage while the knee heals. Sorry.

That's perfectly OK. There will be a next opportunity, e.g about our Ansilbe admin support project.

And good luck with your knee!!!!!!!

OK. I think we can move on.

My problem here is, that a log of Fedora Servers work behind a firewall router on a private network, with non-routable IP space and no official domain name.

So can can't get a certificate e.g. from Let's encrypt - as far as I know. The only option are self signed certificates.

I use a lot of LETSENCRYPT certificates, but I don't use them for Cockpit. In fact, I very seldom use Cockpit.

Yeah, although it is often very comfortable

I also have all of my homelab behind a firewall and wouldn't be able to get a Let's Encrypt certificate either. I like the convenance of logging into Cockpit in the homelab. We have a Let's Encrypt certificate for our server that is exposing port 80 and 443 for our personal website and our web apps on that server so we can access those using our domain name, but to access Cockpit we use the local IP address of the servers given out by our firewall.

I would imagine most homelab people like using Cockpit as a Web GUI, but I don't that most put Cockpit so it is accessible outside to the public internet. I know we don't have a desire to do that. If I'm not on the network and want to access it I would have to use Tailscale.

I would imagine most homelab people like using Cockpit as a Web GUI, but I don't think that most put Cockpit so it is accessible outside to the public internet. I know we don't have a desire to do that. If I'm not on the network and want to access it I would have to use Tailscale.

OK, so I think we agree, that we need a way to access Cockpit on an internal network without "official" certificates. Any objections here?

Yes, I agree that we need a way to access Cockpit on an internal network.

Sounds good to me.

I wonder how Ubuntu and other Cockpit users would look upon this change. This seems like it would affect people outside of Fedora.

proposed !agreed Server WG emphasizes that we need access without official certificates for private networks.

I'll contact the cockpit developers about that and possible alternative solutions.

I think, we can proceed?

topic 4. How can we achieve progress with our Ansible Support

My thinking is whether we can somehow bring more speed to the project.

We are currently working on one service at a time. And if we have issues with the service, we don't get progress.

Sould we work on more than one service at a time?

Or does that create more chaos than it helps?

Testers who will spot errors and suggest improvements, would be the best help and speeding things up. (My personal opinion)

@John agreed!

I don't know if we have enough people who know and understand Ansible. I wish my son had some time. He has set up all of our web apps on our homelab server to be installed and kept up with Ansible scripts. But if we had people who could take on individual implementations that would be great and then another group that is willing to test them on their servers. (Something we could ask for help on during the podcast)

Most services can be configured multiple ways. Starting with a simple basic service install and configuration before a second effort to add bells and whistles would also speed things up.

Ok, then let's stick to the step-by-step approach and try to organize reinforcement, e.g. on the podcast.

Is this work related to Red Hat System Roles project or is it a separate thing? https://access.redhat.com/articles/3050101

The upstream url https://linux-system-roles.github.io/

@bookwar I think is is related, but does not pursue such a broad scope

I see, thanks, was just curios

It is more aboud to include server specific details.

Been a while since I looked at Red Hat System Roles, but back then, those roles pretty much did installation. Not too much in the way of configuration. Things might have changed since then.

I am not aware of the details either, but it might be worth checking if there is a collaboration path so that both initiatives have additional visibility.

I was hopeful we could create roles that allow a new admin to create a set of working services that could support SMB sites. This includes configuration and interoperability.

John Himpel: 1++!

OK, let's go on.

Anything here?

I would just announce, that we urgently need to resume our discussion about test strategy, testing, and QA, the next beta is approaching.

Who do I contact to get data from our survey? and stats from our data?

I think I read the Desktop WG has a long-term goal of moving Fedora to flatpack apps. I personally would not be in favor of this, but again, that is my personal opinion.

mowest: It's pboy@uni-bremen.de :-) The guy is quite busy, unfortunately.

Oh, I thought we had someone else that was going to help us analyze the data and help create some reports from the data. I don't even have access to the results of the survey.

I don't think that I can even look at the results on my own.

mowest: Yes, we have. But we have to make the first step

I also see more and more Fedora distro images are being generated by KIWI. I sure would like it if we could move all of our Fedora Server images to KIWI. Then we would have a better chance of fixing and testing some of the rough edges in Fedora Server.

mowest: Can we talk on Matrix tomorrow in the US evening?

John Himpel: Yes, but I'm not sure, whether the create bootable iso that way, too.

I am busy tomorrow till 8:00pm EST so that probably wouldn't work the best tomorrow.

OK, on Friday!

OK, on Friday??

Friday, I'm more open.

Afternoon, or late afternoon is probably best.

Yes, give me a time. I'm flexible on Friday.

2:00pm Friday afternoon

EST

OK,. 2 pm US est!?

Yes, got it. I' will be available!

And from our brief discussion, I understand that we need to quickly resume our discussion about our distribution media.

I'll check with Nirik whether he can shed some light on the darkness.

OK, time is up. Anything else before we close?

I see none.

So Bye and thank you for joining our meeting!

See you next week.