[sf-lug] SF-LUG & BALUG: System OS upgrades *soon*(?) - volunteer(s)?

[jim]

    I think this is a great volunteer project for anyone 
who's interested in linux system administration. Let us 
know if you're interested in helping or learning. 
    We can meet up either at the next regular SF-LUG 
meeting (Sunday February 5 from 11 AM to 1 PM at the Cafe 
Enchante on Geary at 26th Ave) or at the Linux Discussion 
Group meeting at Noisebridge (every Wednesday evening 
from 6 to 8 PM) or both--don't worry about coordinating 
between multiple meetings, we'll take care of that. 
    Note that Michael is an expert Linux sys admin with 
a particularly good sense of best practices. 



On Sun, 2012-01-22 at 18:25 -0800, Michael Paoli wrote:
> SF-LUG & BALUG: System OS upgrades *soon*(?) - volunteer(s)?
> 
> Jim, et. al.,
> 
> Do we have a quorum of volunteers (or should we also try to add a person
> or two)?  In this case, I'm specifically thinking colo box, physical
> access and associated systems administration stuff (there's also lots
> that can be done mostly remotely).
> 
> Anyway, I see some fairly major upgrades due in our near future.
> Impacted are:
> SF-LUG:
> sflug (guest on vicki, hosts [www.]sf-lug.com)
> vicki (host for the above)
> BALUG:
> vicki (noted above, hosts the immediately below)
> balug-sf-lug-v2.balug.org (guest on vicki, hosts lot of BALUG
>    production)
> aladfar.dreamhost.com. (hosted, will be upgraded/replaced for us, hosts
>    [www.]balug.org, etc.)
> 
> Security support for Debian 5.0 "lenny" ends *soon* (2012-02-06).
> To the extent feasible, we should upgrade the relevant systems soon,
> preferably before that date, if that's doable, but if not, soon
> thereafter.
> 
> Maybe we could plan out the upgrades at an upcoming SF-LUG meeting?
> Roughly, I have in mind (what I'd like to do):
> o There isn't any official supported upgrade path from i386 to amd64
> o the Silicon Mechanics physical box is and will run amd64/x86_64
> o the Silicon Mechanics physical box supports hardware virtualization
> o suitably backup (including on-disk as feasible)
> o generally prepare for upgrades
> o do "upgrades" as follows:
>    o vicki:
>      o backup / move / "shove" stuff around beginning of disk suitably
>        out-of-the-way (on-disk backups / access to existing data)
>      o install Debian 6.0.3 (or latest 6.0.x) amd64, using beginning
>        area(s) of disks, general architecture layout mostly quite as
>        before (everything mirrored, separate /boot, rest under LVM2,
>        separate filesystems, etc.)
>      o install/configure vicki as above to fully support both qemu-kvm,
>        and xen.  Note that on amd64, and with hardware virtualization,
>        that will allow vicki to support i386 and amd64 images under
>        qemu-kvm and I believe also xen.
>    o sflug & balug-sf-lug-v2.balug.org:
>      o once the above vicki upgrades are done, sflug and
>        balug-sf-lug-v2.balug.org can be dealt with remotely
>      o sflug & balug-sf-lug-v2.balug.org can each be dealt with
>        separately by their primary/lead sysadmin(s) as may be desired, in
>        general for them, I'd probably recommend proceeding as follows:
>        o get the existing xen guests running again, more-or-less as they
>          were (may require some adjustments - most notably boot bits) -
>          may be advisable to convert them to run under qemu-kvm as soon as
>          feasible (to avoid guest<-->host kernel, etc. interdependencies)
>        o upgrade guests to Debian 6.0.3 (or latest 6.0.x)
>        o optional: change guests from i386 to amd64, use above guests
>          as reference installations, and do an install/merge to get the
>          guest(s) as desired to amd64 architecture.
> 
> bit 'o reference/background ;-) ...
> 
> THE END* IS NEAR**! *of security support for Debian GNU/Linux 5.0  
> (code name "lenny") **2012-02-06
> 
> Security support of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (code name "lenny") will be
> terminated 2012-02-06.
> Debian released Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 alias "lenny" 2009-02-14.
> Debian released Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 alias "squeeze" 2011-02-06.
> 
> references:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2011/msg00238.html
>