[Linux-aus] Re: [ALLIES] Re: A Linux for Students project idea

[Jonathan Oxer]

On 3/17/06, Andrew Donnellan <ajdlinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm already on the Allies and LIAS lists, and unfortunately they seem
> to be quite dead. Linux-aus seems to be the only moderately active
> public list.

Yes, but you asked for a new mailing list for Linux in schools and I
was just pointing out that LA already runs two such lists. If those
lists happen to be dead then adding a third list isn't going to help:
I'd prefer to see you stoke up some enthusiasm and get people using
the lists that are already there.

> BTW how are the LA servers set up?

Don't even ask! The admin team have been doing a sterling job of
keeping things under control but the problem is that we've ended up
with machines distributed around the countryside (one in Perth, one in
Sydney, one in Melbourne and a fourth on the way to Melbourne) and
Digital (LA's primary server) is in desperate need of a rebuild after
years of customisations and adding odd services to support special
projects. Unfortunately LA is totally dependent on that machine for
things like the mailing lists so we can't just take it offline, nuke
it, and start again, and it's also an incredibly painful process to
add even more services for the sorts of things you're requesting.

The solution we're working on is to set up the fourth machine, which
is kindly being supplied by HP to replace Digital, as a Xen host to
allow us to run each project in its own virtualized environment. Once
that happens it will be much easier for us to just create a whole new
virtual machine and give a project subcommittee access to it so they
can run whatever services they like without affecting anything else.

> When you say the new server is being shipped "right now", does that
> mean it will be arriving/set up within the next, let's say, month?

I'm surprised I haven't seen it already. HP confirmed the shipping
address last week, so it could arrive on my doorstep at any time.

Then of course there is the time necessary to do the actual setup of
the machine, then migrate services from Digital. And like everything
else in LA that's dependent on the availability of volunteers: in this
case probably Andrew Pollock and myself to do the initial setup and
then the entire admin team to extract services from Digital. I've been
totally swamped recently writing Ubuntu Hacks but I should be clear of
that in the next day or so. Next week I'll be setting up servers at
MCI but I can probably find some time to have a look at the new
Digital if HP get the hardware to me.

Cheers   :-)

Jonathan