Meeting started at 2025-09-17 17:00:13 UTC

The Meeting name is 'fedora-server'

topic Roll Call

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

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

!hi

Paul Maconi (aggraxis) - he / him / his

I'm kinda here

Paul Maconi (Aggraxis): very good!

I hope the work is satisfactory nonetheless.

It's quiet for the moment. I think when people get back from lunch it will get noisy again.

Well. I hope so :-) Emmanuel is unable to attend today. I hope Jocelyn (she/her) and mowest will still join us.

And I'm missing John Himpel for some time now.

Well, let's start nevertheless and see, who may attend later. I suppose, nirik is lurking as usual.

* waving back

topic Agenda

Poor Kevin never gets to look away from the mayhem :P

Anything to add or to remove?

No

OK then

Announcements

Applied for adding Server as organisation in new Fedora forge

https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure/issue/12792

I discussed with Ryan. We will get a staging version first.

I remain hopeful that the transition won't be too bumpy. If it all generally works the same as 'check out the repo, edit docs, preview docs, commit' we should be fine.

Yes, the git workflow will be the same. But we can optimize the storage and fix some issues while migrating.

!hi

Jocelyn Gould (korora) - she / her / hers

the migrator does a pretty good job so I hear...

Sorry I’m late. LOL

E.G. our main text and staging differ a lot

Jocelyn (she/her): welcome anyway! sometimes it doesn't work as planned :-)

nirik: Yes, at least it is easy to migrate all the issues etc.

Do you know any documentation how to do it? I didn't find something yet.

But I guess, Ryan will give us some advise when he has created the org.

Ok. We'll stand by :)

And perhaps we should separate our users and our WG documentation. Makes it easier to keep staging in sync

But let's discuss this, when we have access. I hope, Ryan can do that soon.

soon after release f43

Any other announcement or comment?

Tracking issue: !link https://pagure.io/fedora-server/issue/166

Related Issue: https://pagure.io/fedora-server/issue/108

Mailing List: !link https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/server@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/RII6ALAS56K5N6TRR7RYXILRCFZDPP23/

Proposal Draft: !link https://docs.stg.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-server/server-on-arm-sbc/

Part or this is also: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/server@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/AWJRNELVN7BW2VFQUTXZPAEYRZ7DUK4O/

The floor is open :-)

Is the process for loading Server vs any other RPi image materially different?

Grab .img, flash to SD,... profit?

Yes, it is completely different.

For "main" Server you use Anaconda and can do the installation as you like. E.g. keep some partitions with user data. With SBC you flash a complete directory tree, any user data would be gone (if you have to re-install) - just an example.

And you still have a DOS partition table.

no, I understand that

The first thing to decide is whether to remove the SBC installation instructions from our general / main installation section and move them to a “special section.” In doing so, we are, in a sense, separating the SBCs from the main distrib

I meant that for most of the SBC variants out there you install your software the same way

flash the image to an SD card and boot the system

I think the ones where you can actually boot from USB and install to a volume are relatively new, right?

Yes, all SBCs are the same, but they differ greatly from the “real” server. And yes, for the newer, more powerful ones, there is an alternative, so you can install them with Anaconda like the "big" servers.

The key point is: you can't use u-boot anymore, but something else, currently EDK2

EDK2 for aarch is not a Fedora package, but in the responsibility of the maker and the user.

I guess I'm confused why we have SBC-specific docs for Server. When someone says SBC, most people are going to associate that with RPi, and the project has docs for Fedora on Raspberry Pi already. This document shows up as the first hit for the search phrase "fedora install raspberry pi" https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/raspberry-pi/

Installing Server on an RPi should be no different

Installing Server on an RPi should be no different than installing any other OS

Unless something changed, the same process applied whether I dumped Server or Workstation on an RPi 4

Yeah, but the issue is, the Raspi, we support, Pi4, is not suitable for Server-

Mind you I haven't done so in some time.

And we have LVM, which makes a diference.

What do you mean it isn't suitable for server?

No mass storage, to slow,

Ok, so is this really more about the LVM issues with aarch64?

The problem is, the current arm-installer has issues to handle LVM. They get fixed, but shortly after someting else pops up.

This really depends on the workload

I guess I get confused by peoples' expectations for an SBC. I install Server on one when I want a lean starting point without the graphical desktop. I've then done things from 'install pi-hole' to writing python scripts to scrape websites and print haikus to an e-ink hat.

I know it's not going to be an enterprise solution for hosting a critical website or warehousing my files.

This really depends on the workload. For a single service (think Pihole or something) It would do fine, I would think. As the needs increase the SBC wouldn't be suited for the task

I could just as easily get by with Fedora minimal install, honestly. Maybe making a Server variant for SBC isn't really coherent with what Server aims to provide?

Paul Maconi (Aggraxis): It's not enterprise, for sure. But you may use it for some tasks, e.g. host a private web site. Or use it as an independent hardware for monitoring your servers, ... there are a lot of use cases. Many users use it for home lab.

I feel this is best course of action

Yes, that is one point. Fedora Server is a branding for a specific purpose. And a specific reliability.

I guess if it really gets back to the LVM thing again, why are we not in line with the rest of the Fedora ecosystem and embrasing btrfs?

I guess if it really gets back to the LVM thing again, why are we not in line with the rest of the Fedora ecosystem and embracing btrfs?

Oh, that's a long story. There aIn reality all server variants use LVM (e.g. CoreOS) .

Fedora Ecosystem BTRFS is the fake news by some BTRFS proponents and missionaries

OK, back zu our documentation. I take our discussion so far, that we will move the SBC installation into a seprate section together with other documentation about SBC for server.

I'm just not sure why or what documentation we're maintaining that's materially different from the general RPi install instructions.

I saw the draft, but the technical meat isn't there yet.

No, the new section is just a draft. The installation instruction needs an update. And maybe, we may replace parts by a link to some general documentation.

We should not drop it completely. There are some descriptions specific for Server, e.g. the post installation parts.

And the general documentation is more or less unmaintained. More rather than less

I see no comment. So let's switch to next topic?

Tracking issue: !link https://pagure.io/fedora-server/issue/164

I did all the testing with hardware. Everything with x86 went fine so far. No major issue.

I think I touched 31 different test points on the summary test card for Beta 1.3

A bit UI issues with Blivet, but the Anaconda people are already fixing this.

There are some selinux denials, and those are being worked as well.

I've not had a chance to do any testing of F43

The issue I did find wasn't related to Server, but I filed a bug for the LXQt images. They won't boot to desktop, looks like there's already a fix, so we'll see if an updated compose resolves the issue.

Yes, that's well known issue with all desktop editions and spins.

But no issue for Server

I also did some hands-on with the RDP anaconda feature. It is very nice. Sometimes it displays some errors, but the feature itself works.

OK, could add something to documentation?

You guys already wrote documentation

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-server/installation/interactive-remote/

Yes, but the remote part was removed für F42, isn't it?

That document covers the new RDP feature

add kernel args: inst.rdp inst.rdp.username=fedora inst.rdp.password=rocks or define them in ks.cfg (the pykickstart documentation covers the syntax), and when your system boots you just access it via krdc or whatever rdp client using the provided credentials. Works like a champ.

Hm, I see in the history, the current version is 9 months old. And it covers all the details you just decribed?

Anyway, looks good. I'll give it a try when I have to make new screen shots.

yes. From the document:

to the end of the command line. Optionally, it is possible to set a password (inst.rdp.password) and/or username (inst.rdp.username). Replace PASSWORD and USER with the password and username of your choice. Password must be at least 6 characters long. If password and/or username is not set the Anaconda installer will ask interactively.

In the menu, select the kernel you want to boot and type e to get access to the boot options and append

inst.rdp inst.rdp.username=USER inst.rdp.password=PASSWORD

Yes, that's the part to modify the kernel command line. Do that with a non-US keyboard and you get crazy. Therefore we need the option, to use a USB named ... (I just don't remember)with a ks.cfg file which contains these instruction. And you can propare them locally on your desktop.

OEMDRV

YES!

and yes, it works the exact same way you've been doing it with vnc

just use the rdp parameters instead

I verified that the other day.

Hey, this was the testing topic. I've been a busy bee. :)

OK, so that issue is resolved.

A severe issue is the SBC. It still doesn't work at all.

Let's see how this develops in the next week.

Part or this is also: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/server@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/AWJRNELVN7BW2VFQUTXZPAEYRZ7DUK4O/

See my mail:

Well, out time is up.

Anything to add here?

Nothing to add. I've caused enough of a ruckus. :)

No, you haven't!

Yoe were very helpful

What I forgot, we lack tests of the VM installation and documentation check. - Next meeting

?

Oh I see.

I mean, nobody test the virtual machine image so far.

Yeah I did

I will try to get to the vm image... (assuming my health and life cooporates)

I tested a BIOS and a UEFI boot of the server image

as well as a UEFI physical USB install

OK, That's settled then.

So I think we can close?

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