[Mageia-sysadm] our new server, rabbit

Mon Jan 10 02:30:42 CET 2011

Hi
+
+so I installed rabbit.mageia.org this afternoon. 
+
+So we agreed to use raid 1+0. Unfortunately, the raid card do not
+support it, so I went with a simple raid 1 setup. As Thomas noted on
+irc, the server bios, dirac and others are quite outdated, but I do not
+think we could update it ( as this is not our server, but a rented
+one ). 
+
+Rafael, you confirm that we should not update ( we can do it using
+dirac, but I would really have your approval before, and I will take
+care of it, as you may have better thing to do during work hours ).
+
+The system is puppetified, so this mean that our ssh keys ( with ours ==
+admin team ) are placed, and that you can start writing modules 
+
+There is 2 To disk, with a 20 go /, and the rest is a lvm, with 5 go of
+swap.
+
+I tested the dirac interface :
+
+- connect on the interface
+https://console.online.net/serveurs/statut/?page=idrac&sd=XXXXX
+( we still need to find a secure and bus-proof way of sharing password
+and so on )
+ 
+then once connected to it, go in :
+
+systeme => console/media
+
+it worked quite great, except that there is a trick to make it work. I
+used a laptop ( not mine ) running Ubuntu 10.04 ( not mine, as i said )
+with the proprietary java of oracle version 1.6. The java webstart
+system didn't worked, I had to start it by hand 'javaws /tmp/kvm.jnlp'.
+The system  do not let us use vnc ( blocked for security reason, but i
+guess that because they do not want too much fiddling with it and
+overloaded support ). I suspect that parsing the jnlp to get the proper
+parameter should work, but didn't searched much.
+
+The bios didn't recognized the arrow on my keyboard, and the uefi ( yeah
+there is bios and uefi ) did behave weirdly with my mouse, it is used to
+provides various wizard to install your server, etc.
+
+The admin card can send alert to syslog, maybe we should think of it. it
+can also send monitoring to a email and a phone number. I let the
+default setup of using ennael email, but that should be changed.
+
+Regarding the puppet bootstrapping, here is a quick doc I wrote while
+doing it :
+
+On valstar ( ie on svn ).
+- Add the server in manifests/nodes.pp, like commit 751.
+
+
+On the server to be installed ( here, rabbit )
+- connect as root with ssh, or direct access, whatever.
+
+- make sure medias are correctly set ( ie, while I know the goal is to
+help users, I prefered to remove non-free, and plf ). [1]
+
+- remove unneeded rpm ( I removed shorewall, until we configure it, and
+bind ).
+
+- install all updates ( urpmi --auto-update ), and kernel provided by
+Thomas.
+
+- take puppet rpm from valstar /root [2], and install it.
+
+- run 
+# puppet agent --server puppetmaster.mageia.org --no-daemonize
+--onetime 
+
+Puppet will connect to the puppetmaster to ask for his certificate to be
+signed. Make sure that the domain and hostname are properly set
+( hostname should give $server.mageia.org )
+
+On valstar ( aka puppetmaster ), and run :
+# puppet cert -l
+# puppet cert -s rabbit.mageia.org
+
+First command show the list of server certs to sign.
+
+The second command sign the cert.
+
+On rabbit again, run :
+# puppet agent --server puppetmaster.mageia.org --no-daemonize --onetime
+--pluginsync --no-splay --verbose
+
+--pluginsync is need, or it complain about lib_dir ( as it lack a facter
+plugin ). 
+--no-splay is needed or puppet will wait when restarting ( since we
+update the puppet config on first run ).
+
+Puppet will then configure everything. Please warn if you a error
+message ( in pink ), that would mean bootstrapping is broken. ( or if
+you install in a vm with a separate puppetmaster instance, please also
+warn, for the same reason ).
+
+Obviously, this should be set somewhere on the wiki.
+
+Finally, what is left to do. The server was proposed to be used for
+creating isos. I do not know exactly what is needed except lots of IOs,
+and that it requires a local mirror of the tree. So I will add a
+mirroring script from rsync later. 
+
+Blino, can you comment on this ?
+
+A few remark on what we can improve :
+[1] We should have a consistent urpmi database on the cluster. I was
+working 6 months ago on my spare time on this for me. But it is neither
+finished nor published, and I do not have spare time.
+
+[2] I think puppet should be properly backported or at least, placed in
+some repo. Again, I was lazy and copied it, but it would be better to
+not use a out of tree rpm.
+-- 
+Michael Scherer
+
+