[clo-devel] common-lisp.net needs upgrading

[Ingvar]

Erik Huelsman writes:
> The server running common-lisp.net has been running in the current
> configuration for a number of years now. Its Debian distribution is
> still Etch, which has been moved to the archives June 20th last year.
> As a consequence, we're locked out of even the most basic of
> maintenance needs: security updates.
> 
> Bottom line: common-lisp.net as it is today can't be maintained
> anymore. We need to upgrade the system.

Urp, yes, that sounds like a necessity.

> We have two options for the system upgrade:
> 
> 1. Copy the VPS and run dist-upgrade; then fix whatever falls over.
> 2. Create a new VPS, and make a clean start, meaning that we identify
> all services currently running on cl-net and we arrange for the same
> or equivalent services to be running on the new system.
> 
> 
> Stelian has indicated his preference is for option (2), as too much
> has been customized or is installed in custom locations to make a
> standard dist-upgrade work. I concur.
> 
> Another remark from Stelian is that we could migrate one service at a
> time, creating subdomains (svn.common-lisp.net, git.common-lisp.net,
> trac...., etc) which might help future migrations.

Option 2 and creating subdomains for individual services sound like, possibly, 
the right thing.

[ SNIP ]
> Services that I know we're running [without looking at the box]:
> 
>  * Mail [MTA]
>  * Web
>  * Ticket tracker (RT - internal use)
>  * Mailing lists
>  * Subversion
>  * Repository browsing
>    - Subversion
>    - Git
>    - Darcs
>    - CVS (do we still want to support CVS ??)

How many projects do we have that use CVS rather than another version control 
system? I know that none of the ones I am directly involved in use anything 
buy CVS. Not really a problem for Gamelib, I can definitely cut off existing 
version history and start over with a clean check-in into something else, but 
I am pretty sure there are in-flight checks for NOCtool.

So if we don't want to support CVS, we better provide a conversion path for 
projects that rely on it.

>  * Trac
>  * spam detection
>  * Git deamon
>  * rsync (what for?)
>  * sshd
>  * ftpd
>  * lisppaste (on sbcl-0.9.7??)
>  * fast-cgi
>  * custom administration scripts
> 
> Drew and I want to replace RT by OTRS which is also standard in Debian
> and we have good experiences with - I set one up recently for
> ourselves.
> 
> So, I guess for now, there are two questions to be answered:
> 
> 1. Do you know of any additional services that we need to migrate?
> 2. Who wants to help out and which services can you help migrating with?

I can probably find time to poke mail, mailing lists and maybe web, but this 
all depends rather heavily on when we're considering doing it (I won't really 
have any spare time until mid-May, what with work and everything).
 
//Ingvar