sourceware hardware transition plan, part 1/N

[Frank Ch. Eigler]

Hi -

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 11:37:24AM -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> [...]
> Ok, how do we get started?  I can take some time off from work to focus
> on this if needed.  We have days available for working on stuff like
> this.

I think the key will be mechanizing & logging our work, so that a
trial migration can be done on our own time, with a later refresh at
the actual cutover.  

So, first step would seem to be a rerunnable rsync from server1:/
->server4:/sourceware3, and (to start exercising warm-backup
capabilities) from server4:/sourceware[123]->server5:/sourceware[123].
I suggest rsyncing the whole machine (not just /export/u0) to capture
/etc and /usr/local and the databases and everything.

Chris, want to give those a try?

Next step could be creation of a script on server4 that takes
/sourceware3 and populates the migrated forms of /sourceware1 and
various symlinks, etc. on the server, to the extent easily automated.
I'd exclude things like iptables, passwd, httpd configs, which I
imagine we'll have to hand-migrate.


> Should we rsync stuff over and then start working on a ezmlm->mailman
> translation?  We'll also likely need to do a lot of work to keep URLs
> correct.

(My original thought was that the existing mhonarc archives would be
preserved, so existing URLs would stay valid; just new archives would
go to a new http url hierarchy.)

> Do we REALLY want to move from ezmlm?  Isn't there an rpm-based package
> out there somewhere that we could use?

Well, dunno.  ezmlm is not the worst thing about old sourceware; if
others are content, we could keep it awhile longer.  The mediawiki
transition could also be done later, on-line.


- FChE