Re: Label now master LDAP server

[Ross Golder <ross golder org>]

Olav Vitters wrote:
> Strangely, the load on label even with openldap is much less than it
> used to be on button. Maybe because of the incomplete config mentioned
> by ninja.
> 

Yep, LDAP was much slower on button because the slapd.conf 'loglevel'
had been left at a non-zero setting, so much of the load was slapd
passing a ton of debug-level stuff off to syslogd. These things happen,
I guess.

>> We simply need to get the other machines upgraded ... migrating
>> everything to box and label because they are RHEL4 isn't sustainable.

What are the alternatives?

Short of getting more new servers to migrate stuff to, our only option
seems to be to upgrade the ones we've got. But, I recall there were
issues and reservations raised by a few people about upgrading the RHEL3
boxes due to the potential disruption it might cause and problems
arranging physical access to the machine to do it etc etc. Since then,
our only option has been to use whatever server we have available that
meets the requirements at the time.

>
> Agreed; I do not want anything else on box. Further, even box does not
> meet the minimum requirements for Bugzilla 3.0.
>

Moving everything to box and label because they are RHEL4 certainly
isn't sustainable. In fact I don't even think it's a good idea as even
RHEL4 is starting to get a bit 'old' now itself, so will probably start
to give us the same kind of dependency problems as RHEL3 has if/when we
try installing recent versions of certain types of software or upgrading
old ones.

For example, in the case of 'guadec.org' which was hosted on window
(RHEL3). We considered moving it to label, but RHEL4's version of PHP
(4.3.9, released over 2yrs ago now and several major revisions behind
the latest recommended production version) wasn't recent enough to host
a recent/secure(!) version of Drupal anyway. Luckily, Danilo was kind
enough to allow us to host it on progress alongside his L10N pages. If
we only had the choice of RHEL3 or RHEL4 at the time, we'd have been
left wanting. I don't think upgrading everything to RHEL4 or moving any
more of our services to our RHEL4 boxes is necessarily a good long-term
plan anyway.

So, what is the best way forward? Does someone have a more 'sustainable'
plan to offer? :)

I have a rough idea in my head of where I would like to see things
going, but I don't expect to have the time in 2007 to either write it up
as a proposal or to see it through. I'm still hoping that I will find
enough spare time to finish documenting our existing systems, services,
problems and procedures and to bring a few more sysadmin volunteers on
board (or empower others) to help keep the growing number of requests
from the community under control. It would be nice to see my GNOME
sysadmin mail folder backlog cleared!

In the meantime, until a master plan materialises, I guess we will just
have to keep doing as we have always done - fighting fires, re-acting to
requests as best we can and using whatever resources we have available
at the time to solve our problems. Isn't that what most sysadmins do? :)

Merry Christmas, all.

--
Ross