announce March 2009

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Announcing Fedora 11 Beta
by Jesse Keating 31 Mar '09

31 Mar '09

This is the part where I usually come up with something clever to say before the useful information regarding a development release. I had something great, I really did. In fact I had the most clever statement in the world. Only you see, my cat jumped on my keyboard, right when I was testing emacs (I don't even use emacs!) and the darn X session just got zapped! All my cleverness gone, and this, well this is just a tribute. When Fedora 10 was released, users and press alike gushed: "Slick and stable... has a rock solid feel." "Fast and easy." "A great release." What's next for the free operating system that shows off the best new technology of tomorrow? You can find out at: http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease We also hope to repeat the crazy success of Fedora 10's Beta contest! Test five things in the Beta that are important to you as a user. If you find a bug *and* report it, you get the free attention of a package maintainer on a problem personally important to you! Do your part to make Fedora 11 that much better. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ Among the top features of this ground-breaking release: * Automatic Fonts & Mime Installer - Allows programs on the desktop to automatically install applications, fonts, multimedia capabilities, and clipart. * Fingerprint Readers - Better experience for systems with fingerprint readers, including support through the graphical Authentication Configuration tool and gnome-about-me. * Intel, ATI, and Nvidia kernel modesetting - Fedora 10 provided the first steps by a major distribution in using the kernel modesetting (KMS) feature to speed up graphical boot. Fedora 11 has increased the video card coverage of the KMS feature, with more to come. * Virt Console - Fedora 11 provides more accurate mouse pointer positioning and higher screen resolutions for virtual machine consoles, along with other improvements such as simpler use of USB devices. * MinGW Cross-compiler - Build and test full-featured Microsoft Windows programs, from the comfort of a Fedora system, without needing to use that "other OS." * Volume Control - The multimedia experience of Fedora users is improved by an easily understandable and much more flexible volume control. But wait, there's more! For developers there are all sorts of goodies: * Python 2.6 - This new version in Fedora is a precursor to Python 3000 (3.0), including many compatibility measures to help developers get their code prepared for the next generation of Python. * NetBeans 6.5 - NetBeans IDE 6.5 is a significant update of NetBeans IDE 6.1 that includes improved JavaScript, AJAX, Ruby, and database support. * gcc 4.4 - The gcc compiler suite has been updated to the latest version, featuring better error detection for the latest in safety and execution. * Eclipse profiling tools - Add the power of various native profiling tools into the Eclipse IDE and integrate with the rest of the development environment. Peek under the hood and there is still more: * Desktop Environments - Updates to Gnome 2.26 and KDE 4.2.1 bring the latest innovations and functionality to desktop users. Xfce and Sugar have also been updated. * Anaconda Storage - New storage code for the Anaconda installer improves the ability to handle new types of storage. The rewrite does not change the user interface. * Minimal Platform - New installer features make it much easier to create very small installations for embedded applications, such as for a server or desktop appliance. * Control groups - Allows system administrator to partition the system resources into different sub groups, and dedicate these sub groups resources to different applications' need. * DeviceKit - A simple, modular system service to manage devices and designed to partially replace HAL. Users gain a graphical disk management application that integrates nicely into the desktop. * DNS Security - DNSSEC (DNS SECurity) is a mechanism that can prove integrity and authenticity of DNS data. * ext4 filesystem - ext4 is the new default file system for Fedora 11 (replacing ext3) allowing for larger file system support and better performance by providing real-time fragmentation prevention and smarter data allocations. * sVirt MAC - sVirt integrates SELinux with the Fedora virtualization stack to allow Mandatory Access Control (MAC) security be applied to guest virtual machines * Power Management - Fedora 11 includes new power monitoring utilities and a new system daemon that automatically adjusts power settings to reflect the current system use. There is also a facility to review the system and make suggestions on improving power consumption. * IBus input method - Ibus has been rewritten in C, and provides a simple, clean default system for changing the way international users input information into a Fedora system. And that is only the beginning. A more complete list and details of each new cited feature is available: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/11/FeatureList For release information, including common and known bugs, please refer to the release notes: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_11_Beta_release_notes Since this is a Beta release, there may still be some rough spots still in the polishing phase. Some of them are already known and in the process of fixing. If you find a problem, please check the list of known issues and then file a bug: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_11_Beta_release_notes#Known_Issues https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla -- Jesse Keating Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature! identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating

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Fedora Weekly News #169
by Oisin Feeley 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

Fedora Weekly News Issue 169 Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 169 for the week ending March 29th, 2009. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue169 This week in "What Happened Last Summer?" Developments conveys an announcement on the Fedora intrusion of 2008. Announcements reels-off a list of interesting "Upcoming Events". PlanetFedora selects choice blog posts including Richard W.M. Jones' RPM-dependency visualizer. Marketing reports that "Fedora has the Most New Features". Ambassadors reports that "Fedora is on the move in Italy". QualityAssurance shares the results of "Test Days" for the nouveau driver and other outstanding work. Translation catches-up on problems with Persian l10n and more. Artwork asks is it too late for "A Lion for Leonidas?". Security warns of a "Firefox Emergency". Virtualization concludes that "KVM and QEMU Merge Feature Stays in Fedora 11" and on "Web Based libvirt Management" and a comprehensive "Fedora Virtualization Status Report". If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join' page[1]. We welcome reader feedback: fedora-news-list(a)redhat.com 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Oisin Feeley, Huzaifa Sidhpurwala Contents 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 169 1.1 Announcements 1.1.1 Fedora Board 1.1.2 Fedora 11 1.1.3 Qt 4.5.0 1.1.4 FUDCon Berlin 2009 1.1.5 Upcoming Events 1.2 Planet Fedora 1.2.1 General 1.3 Marketing 1.3.1 Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-03-24 1.3.2 Fedora on Twitter and Identi.ca 1.3.3 Fedora has the Most New Features 1.4 Ambassadors 1.4.1 Fedora is on the move in Italy 1.4.2 Got Ambassador News? 1.5 QualityAssurance 1.5.1 Test Days 1.5.2 Weekly meetings 1.5.3 Wiki changes 1.5.4 Bugzappers meeting schedule 1.5.5 Triage Days on the Wiki 1.6 Developments 1.6.1 What Happened Last Summer 1.6.2 Emacs Cabal Disables Xorg Ctrl-Alt-Backspace 1.6.3 ZFS-based Upgrades 1.6.4 Repoview Temporarily Bust in Fedora 10 1.6.5 LGPL Qt-4.5 in Fedora 10 and Fedora 9 1.7 Translation 1.7.1 FLP Meeting 1.7.2 FLP Admin Meeting 1.7.3 Anaconda File Ready for Translation 1.7.4 Release Notes Moved in the Repository 1.7.5 PackageKit 0.4.6 version for Fedora 11 1.7.6 New Members in FLP 1.8 Artwork 1.8.1 Preparing for the Berlin FUDCon 1.8.2 A Lion for Leonidas? 1.9 Security Week 1.9.1 Firefox Emergency 1.10 Virtualization 1.10.1 Fedora Virtualization List 1.10.1.1 KVM and QEMU Merge Feature Stays in Fedora 11 1.10.1.2 Fedora Virtualization Status Report 1.10.2 Fedora Xen List 1.10.2.1 Success with Experimental Fedora 10 pv_ops dom0 1.10.2.2 Yum Repository for Experimental Dom0 Kernels 1.10.3 Libvirt List 1.10.3.1 More Formal libvirt Release Scheduling 1.10.3.2 New Release perl-Sys-Virt 0.2.0 1.10.3.3 SCSI Host Pools Patch 1.10.3.4 API for Host Interface Configuration 1.10.3.5 Web Based libvirt Management == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events Contributing Writer: Max Spevack === Fedora Board === Our fearless leader[1] reminded[2] the community that the Fedora Board will be "holding its monthly public meeting on Tuesday, 7 April 2009, at 1800 UTC on IRC Freenode." Join #fedora-board-meeting to see the Board's conversation. Join #fedora-board-public to discuss topics and post questions. This channel is read/write for everyone. Paul also mentioned a change in the procedure for the meeting. "We're trying something new (albeit in a minor way) in this meeting. The moderator will still be available to gather input from the #fedora-board-public channel, but will voice people, one at a time, in the queue in the #fedora-board-meeting channel." 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pfrields 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-March/msg00009.html === Fedora 11 === Jesse Keating[1] announced[2] that the Beta composes are complete, and that the freeze on Rawhide has been lifted. Andreas Bierfert[3] announced[4] that opensync was being downgraded to 0.22, as discussed on fedora-devel-list. As a result, maintainers will need to rebuild "all packages which depend on opensync in some way." 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JesseKeating 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2009-March/msg00019.ht… 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AndreasBierfert 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2009-March/msg00018.ht… === Qt 4.5.0 === Kevin Kofler[1] informed[2] the community that, "we are working on providing Qt 4.5.0 as updates for Fedora 9 and 10." There are several important pieces of information that anyone who maintains a Qt-4-based package needs to know. Please read the full announcement. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Kkofler 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2009-March/msg00020.ht… === FUDCon Berlin 2009 === Max Spevack[1] reminded[2] the community about FUDCon Berlin 2009[3], including registration[4], lodging[5], and speaking[6] opportunities. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-March/msg00005.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009_attendees 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009_lodging 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon_Berlin_and_LinuxTag_2009_talks === Upcoming Events === March 31-April 2: Linux Solutions[1] in Paris, France. April 1-2: OpenExpo[2] in Bern, Switzerland. April 15: NYLUG[3] in New York, New York, USA. April 17-19: Summer Geek Camp 2[4] in Antipolo City, Phillipines. April 18: BarCamp Rochester[5] in Rochester, New York, USA. April 19-22: Red Hat EMEA Partner Summit[6] in Malta. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/SolutionsLinux/SolutionsLinux2009 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/OpenExpo/OpenExpo2009_Berne 3. http://nylug.org/ 4. http://fedora.bluepoint.com.ph/index.php?entry=20090204000843 5. http://barcamprochester.org/ 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_EMEA_Partner_Summit_2009 == Planet Fedora == In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide. http://planet.fedoraproject.org Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin === General === Dave Malcolm developed[1],[2] a command line app called show that allows for access to various log files through an SQL-like interface. It supports aggregates and can handle Apache access logs, /var/log/messages and /var/log/secure and various others using backends from Augeas[3] for configuration files like /etc/passwd. Paul W. Frields explained[4] how to convert virtual disk images between various formats using utilities from qemu. Rakesh Pandit wrote[5] a "Report for National Institute of Technology Hamirpur Software Activity Workshop" describing an event where students were trained in software development using Free and Open Source Software. Nicu Buculei announced[6] that the Open Clipart Library has reached its goal of 10,000 images. Richard W.M. Jones posted[7] a visualization of RPM dependencies by size, as part of his quest to build a minimal Fedora installation. A later followup noted[8] that very different results occur depending on how the dependencies are traversed (in this case, breadth-first traversal versus depth-first). He then released[9] a tool, rpmdepsize[10] to allow users to generate their own dependency visualizations. James Morris described[11] some security subsystem changes going into the 2.6.29 kernel. Jef Spaleta continued[12] writing about "the NSF workshop on software sustainability for cyberinfrastructure" and the mismatch that often occurs between the length of grant funding and expected software lifetimes and lifecycles. Chitlesh Goorah followed-up[13] with the abstract of the Fedora Electronic Lab position paper from the workshop. Chitlesh later posted[14] some information on FEL's place in the open source Electronic Design Automation (EDA) world. Luis Villa wrote[15] about "deliberative nirvana and software design myopia". He cited the White House's Open For Questions[16] site, built using tools like Google Moderator and App Engine, allowing it to scale on a technological level without any realistic limitations but with results that may not perfectly reflect the United States due to social/demographic limitations of the technology. 1. http://dmalcolm.livejournal.com/1301.html 2. http://dmalcolm.livejournal.com/1704.html 3. http://augeas.net/ 4. http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=1548 5. http://rakesh.gnulinuxcentar.org/?p=131 6. http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2009/03/mission-accomplished-ocal-10k.html 7. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/size-of-rpm-dependencies/ 8. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/size-of-rpm-dependencies-2/ 9. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/rpm-dependency-size-viewer-now-availab… 10. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/rpmdepsize/ 11. http://james-morris.livejournal.com/39909.html 12. http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/38486.html 13. http://clunixchit.blogspot.com/2009/03/fel-position-paper-for-national-scie… 14. http://clunixchit.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-we-shaped-fel.html 15. http://tieguy.org/blog/2009/03/28/deliberative-nirvana-and-software-design-… 16. http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions/ == Marketing == In this section, we cover the Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: Kam Salisbury === Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-03-24 === The meeting log of the 2009-03-24 Fedora Marketing Meeting was made[1] available. === Fedora on Twitter and Identi.ca === Fedora on Twitter.com passed 500 followers and Identi.ca 50 followers[2]! === Fedora has the Most New Features === In another example of Fedora leading the way, a comparison of the Fedora 11 and an upcoming similiar distribution's release shows that Fedora has the lion's share of new features.[3] 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Meeting:Marketing_meeting_2009-03-24 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-March/msg00146.ht… 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-March/msg00232.ht… == Ambassadors == In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors Contributing Writer: Larry Cafiero === Fedora is on the move in Italy === Luca Foppiano's recent blog item[1] outlines developments in Italy. While Luca mentions that Italy has not yet reached the numbers of the French and German communities, the Italian community is growing. With around 7 ambassadors and 10 to 15 regular IRC participants, the community has put down firm roots in the country. For 2009, Luca reports that some activities are in the works, like: * One meeting each month, to keep in touch regularly, have brainstorming, discussions and involving all interested people. * Pages on fedora wiki to keep and track internal information like events and inventory. "I think we are on the right way," Luca writes. "Stay tuned" 1. http://blog.foppiano.org/2009/03/15/moving-fedora-it-on-rails/ === Got Ambassador News? === Any Ambassador news tips from around the Fedora community can be submitted to me by e-mailing lcafiero-AT-fedoraproject-DOT-org and I'd be glad to put it in this weekly report. == QualityAssurance == In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA === Test Days === This week's[1] was on the Noveau driver[2]for NVIDIA video cards, which will become the default in Fedora 11. Thanks to an excellent turnout, over 80 sets of results were reported, and several bug reports were made: some of the issues have already been resolved. The developer present was Ben Skeggs, and Adam Williamson, James Laska and Will Woods were present for the QA team. Next week again will see two test days. The first[3] will be on the radeon driver for ATI graphics cards, while the second[4] will be on [5] power management. Live CDs will be available for both test days so you'll be able to test without a Rawhide installation. The Radeon test day will be held on Wednesday (2009-03-01) and the Power Management test day on Thursday (2009-03-02) in the #fedora-qa channel on Freenode IRC. If you have a Radeon graphics card, please make sure to come along to the first test day; if you have a laptop, please come to the second. If you can't make it on the day, please do the tests and fill out your results on the page another day. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-26 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NouveauAsDefault 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-04-01 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-04-02 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PowerManagement === Weekly meetings === The QA group weekly meeting[1] was held on 2009-03-25. Will Woods reported that the Fedora 11 beta release had slipped. James Laska reported that packaging work on the Semantic extension for Mediawiki was progressing, and one package had already passed review. He also noted that he had created a test Mediawiki instance with the extension enabled, but had not yet been able to do much testing. Adam Williamson confirmed that he also had not had time to do much testing. Adam Williamson reported that planning for the Radeon test day was still in progress. He also reported that Bugzappers team review of Anaconda bugs for the Fedora 11 beta release had been successfully completed. Adam Williamson reported that the Xfce test day was fully planned, and Kevin Fenzi reported that he had successfully generated some live CD images for the test day. Adam asked if someone could make sure these images would be available for download. Will Woods reported that he had been testing upgrade scenarios for the Fedora 11 beta release and had found several bugs in this area. James Laska noted that most critical bugs for the beta release were already known and being tracked, and re-testing was not necessary for any known issues. A long discussion followed on the correct place and format in which to note known issues. The group agreed that known issues for the beta release should be noted within the beta release notes as separate sub-headings, and a concerted effort should be made to make sure that the release notes were referred to in all official, semi-official and unofficial communications regarding the beta release. Will Woods' suggestion that this was a job for the <marquee> tag was roundly rejected. The Bugzappers group weekly meeting[2] was held on 2009-03-24. It was a short meeting as several key group members were not able to attend. Matej Cepl reported that he had consolidated his RHEL and Fedora triage and signature scripts into a single Greasemonkey script[3]. Other topics were deferred to future meetings or the mailing list for lack of a reasonable number of group members to make binding decisions. The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-04-02 at 1600 UTC (note reversion to previous meeting time) in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-04-01 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings 3. http://mcepl.fedorapeople.org/scripts/greasemonkey/bugzillaBugTriage.user.js === Wiki changes === The group discussed Christopher Beland's new How to Triage draft[1], and Chris made several revisions and improvements. Chris summarized[2] several remaining questions relating to the page, and Adam Williamson[3] and Edward Kirk provided feedback[4]. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Beland/How_to_Triage 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg01105.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg01125.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg01110.html === Bugzappers meeting schedule === Adam Williamson requested[1] a final decision on re-scheduling the Bugzappers group movement, but no final conclusion was yet reached. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg01108.html === Triage Days on the Wiki === Adam Williamson apologized for the delay, and announced [1] that a Triage Day page was now available on the Wiki, explaining the existence and function of the Bugzappers group's weekly Triage Day. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg01129.html == Developments == In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel mailing list are summarized. Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley === What Happened Last Summer? === Paul W. Frields broke radio silence to provide[1] a detailed explanation of last August's (2008-08-12) security problem. Briefly, a Fedora Project systems administrator used a pass-phraseless SSH key. This was copied from the administrator's machine and used to gain access to Fedora infrastructure. Subsequently trojaned versions of OpenSSH and rpm were built and deployed on Fedora infrastructure. The investigation concludes that these packages were detected and removed before any rpms were built with them or distributed to Fedora users. The full, detailed communication includes a time-line. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-March/msg00010.html === Emacs Cabal Disables Xorg Ctrl-Alt-Backspace === Much work has been done on the Fedora 11 release notes[2] to advise users of significant changes. A thread started[3] by Gerry Reno to question the disabling of Ctrl-Alt-Backspace as a key combination to kill the X server shows that these beta release notes are an important means to notify prospective users of new features of the operating system. Gerry was among many contributors to the thread that preferred to keep the traditional functionality enabled. This change was an upstream Xorg decision apparently taken to prevent users from accidentally killing their X servers. Although there had previously been extensive discussion (reported in FWN#162[4]) and a nice, hot flamewar on the upstream lists[5] the change seemed to take many by surprise. This prompted[6] accusations that "[...] big changes like this need to be advertised extensively instead of just quietly slipped in." Roland McGrath suggested[7] ways in which xorg.conf could be changed using a kickstart post-scriptlet but preferred that such choices would be pushed into the users' "keyboard shortcut" preferences. Gerry raised[8] the issue of the use of the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace combination being essential to virtual machine management. Another dissatisfied user was Arthur Pemberton. He requested[9] discussion of why such large changes as disabling Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, removing Xorg.conf in favor of auto-detection, and others had been made without what he considered to be enough discussion. Response to this line of questioning suggested[10] variously that the change had been made "secretly" upstream in order to appease an emacs-using cabal, and that Fedora had adopted the changes solely because Ubuntu had done so. This latter accusation was disputed[11] by Matthew Garrett. The emacs angle seems to come from the fact that the emacs key-combinations "Ctrl-Alt-End" and "Ctrl-Alt-\" are, with certain keyboard layouts, a danger to fumble-fingered users. Arthur pointed[12] to an added complication in a use case in which booting with the monitor powered off requires restarting the X server. Felix Miata mentioned[13] that OpenSuSE's solution was to require that the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace sequence be struck twice before it took effect. This was also suggested[14] by Gerry during a thread in which Matthew Garrett and Matthias Clasen explained that the Terminate_Server symbol could be bound to any desired key-binding through XKB maps. Ahmed Kamal suggested[15]: "To anyone wanting to kill X when it hangs, why not login through a VC and `pkill X' .. Just like any process, why do we have to have magic keys!" Similarly Adam Jackson challenged[16] the assertion that it would be possible to use the key combination to deal with faulty drivers. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_11_Beta_release_notes 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01682.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue162#Fedora_11_Alpha_Released 4. http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-September/038786.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01705.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01691.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01697.html 8. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01770.html 9. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01791.html 10. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01888.html 11. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01732.html 12. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01820.html 13. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01804.html 14. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01708.html 15. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01989.html === ZFS-based Upgrades === Neal Becker posted[17] a link to an interesting way to use the capabilities of the ZFS filesystem to take snapshots of the system and provide a safe, stable way to upgrade. Seth Vidal seemed[18] sanguine that this would be relatively easy with a YUM-based system. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01597.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01599.html === Repoview Temporarily Bust in Fedora 10 === After a report from Uwe Kiewel that he could not create a repoview for Fedora 10 Everything Seth Vidal posted[19] that there was a fix available in rawhide but it had not got into Fedora 10 yet. Konstantin Ryabitsev (Icon) built the updated packages and Josh Boyer posted[20] that they would be available very shortly. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01585.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01648.html === LGPL Qt-4.5 in Fedora 10 and Fedora 9 === KevinKofler announced[21] updates of Qt-4.5 for Fedora 10 and Fedora 9. He detailed the advantages of this backwards-compatible update and suggested that maintainers of Qt-4-based packages do some quick checks to ensure that there would be no snags. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01696.html == Translation == This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee === FLP Meeting === The common meeting for the Fedora Localization Project team was held on 25th/26th March 2009[1][2]. The discussion centered around general feedback around the new transifex interface for statistics and submissions. Currently, it lacks the FLP logo and is also not the landing page for the project. AnkitPatel from the FLP-Admin team informed that these issues can be fixed after the end of Fedora Infrastructure freeze period. Other issues that were discussed were the non-availability of the updated Anaconda file and problem related to leadership in the Persian Translation team. The meeting was chaired by NorikoMizumoto. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00181.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00180.html === FLP Admin Meeting === The FLP Admin team met[1] on 24th March 2009 to discuss about the new transifex instance, publican/docs support for statistics generation on transifex, feedback ticket filing FAQ, coordination with Fedora Infrastructure team to iron out the current issues. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00165.html === Anaconda File Ready for Translation === Ville-Pekka Vainio announced[1] the availability of the updated Anaconda .po files for translation. The files were held back due to a delay from the Anaconda developers who were running additional tests [2]. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00191.html 2. http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=484784#c5 === Release Notes Moved in the Repository === The location of the translated .po files of Fedora Release notes were recently moved without notification, within the git repository[1][2]. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2009-March/msg00093.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00158.html === PackageKit 0.4.6 version for Fedora 11 === RichardHughes announced[1] that the 0.4.6 version of PackageKit would be part of Fedora 11 and translations for this version were to be submitted by 29th March 2009. PackageKit 0.4.6 is scheduled for release on 30th March 2009. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00178.html === New Members in FLP === Hamid Reza Neyari (Persian)[1], Hedda Peters (German)[2], Sam Friedmann (French)[3], Sveinn Helgi Sverrisson (Icelandic)[4], Imre Csuhai (Hungarian)[5] joined the Fedora Localization Project during the past week. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00168.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00186.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00189.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00190.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00192.html == Artwork == In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei === Preparing for the Berlin FUDCon === Max Spevack presented[1] on @fedora-art a check list with items needed by the organizational team for the upcoming FUDCon in Berlin: a T-shirt design, a magazine ad, posters, banners and more "I'd love to use FUDCon Berlin to really show off the coolness of the Fedora Art team, and to provide our EMEA crew with some reusable resources for future FUDCons in the region, as well as some stuff that we can use for the F11 release, and then auction off or something :)" 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00171.html === A Lion for Leonidas? === Samuele Storari advanced[1] a new concept for the Fedora 11 artwork, a lion "So I created a new theme based on the meaning of the name: Leonidas come from Lions and Leonidas was a king,so why don't use another king? This graphic proposal is about the proud and the glory for being a king and the subject is shouting:'The King is here!'" The graphics were generally liked but considered a bit too late by Martin Sourada[2] and Máirín Duffy[3] "We are *really* late in the schedule right now, and we had already made a decision, based on our survey, to go with a landscape depicting Greece so we have a number of mockups and work around that concept already". 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00179.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00181.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00184.html == Security Week == In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora. Contributing Writer: JoshBressers === Firefox Emergency === On Friday, a new version of Firefox [1] was released. The number of hours that went into this event are amazing to even consider. For most of the week, there were various groups working non stop to make this happen. Be sure to update your firefox, it's pretty important. 1. http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2009/03/26/cansecwest-2009-pwn2own-exploit… == Virtualization == In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora virtualization technologies. Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley === Fedora Virtualization List === This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-virt list. ==== KVM and QEMU Merge Feature Stays in Fedora 11 ==== After missing the previous round (FWN #165[1]) and some development delay, the KVM and QEMU package merge feature[2] of Fedora 11 has been marked as accepted by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee[3]. "Currently, there is both a qemu package and kvm package. The KVM package's source is a fork of the QEMU source, but KVM regularily re-bases to the latest QEMU source and merging of KVM support into the QEMU code base is actively under-way." 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue165#Approved_F11_Virtualization_Feat… 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/KVM_and_QEMU_merge 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FESCO ==== Fedora Virtualization Status Report ==== After a few weeks off, Mark McLoughlin reached back into the future and produced an exhaustive status report[1] covering all the developments in fedora Virtualization for the last month. Grab a bowl of popcorn and dig in! 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-March/msg00068.html === Fedora Xen List === This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list. ==== Success with Experimental Fedora 10 pv_ops dom0 ==== Users are continuing to build experimental kernels with pv_ops dom0[1] support. Pasi Kärkkäinen was happy to report[2] success getting a "custom Xen pv_ops dom0 kernel working with virt-install and/or virt-manager on Fedora 10". "I was able to run the following on Fedora 10 32bit PAE pv_ops dom0:" * CentOS 5.3 32bit PAE PV domU * Fedora 10 32bit PAE PV domU (using virt-install and custom kickstart to force PAE kernel installation to avoid the anaconda BUG[3]) Pasi was successful by using: * pv_ops dom0 kernel (2.6.29-rc8 or newer) "Compile with CONFIG_HIGHPTE=n since it seems to be broken still" * libvirt 0.6.1 and related packages from Fedora 10 updates-testing * xen 3.3.1-9 packages from rawhide/F11 rebuilt for F10 * LVM volumes for domU disks (tap:aio is not yet supported by pv_ops dom0 kernel) 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/XenPvopsDom0 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00071.html 3. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=470905 ==== Yum Repository for Experimental Dom0 Kernels ==== Since Koji removes scratch builds after some time, Michael Young created[1] a repository[2] for the experimental Dom0 capable[3] kernels he's experimenting with. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00078.html 2. http://fedorapeople.org/~myoung/dom0/ 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/XenPvopsDom0 === Libvirt List === This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list. ==== More Formal libvirt Release Scheduling ==== After Daniel Veillard proposed a libvirt 0.6.2 release next week, Daniel Berrange thought [1] the "release schedule has become a little too variable in timeframe and quality in recent times[...]" (FWN #155[2]) and suggested: * Monthly releases aiming for the 1st of the month. * Any non-trivial new feature for release must be reviewed, approved and committed at least 1 week before the release. Daniel Berrange is also "working on an integration test suite, which will enable us to run automated tests against individual hypervisor drivers. This will help us detect regressions in hypervisor drivers, and more importantly let us ensure that all drivers are implementing consistent semantics for their APIs." Daniel Veillard tended[3] "to agree on the approximate rule of one release every months [sic] but I would like to keep this flexible" and offered this schedule for the next 2 releases: * 0.6.2: commit feature freeze: Tuesday 31 Mar expected release date: Friday 3 Apr * 0.6.3: commit feature freeze: Friday 17 Apr expected release date: Friday 24 Apr 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00435.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue155#Release_of_libvirt_0.5.0_and_0.5… 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00446.html ==== New Release perl-Sys-Virt 0.2.0 ==== Daniel Berrange announced[1] an update of the Perl binding for libvirt, perl-Sys-Virt[2]. New features: * Fix network create API, and UUID lookups * Implement storage pool, storage vol, node device, security model, domain events and event loop APIs * Improve way constants are exposed to Perl layer * Fix horrible memory leak in methods returning a hash * Fix integer overflow in APIs using 64-bit ints (aka 'long long') * Minimum required libvirt C library for building is 0.6.1 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00449.html 2. http://search.cpan.org/dist/Sys-Virt/ ==== SCSI Host Pools Patch ==== David Allan has been working[1] on a reworked SCSI host storage pool[2] patch for some time, and appears to be close to ironing out all the bugs. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00420.html 2. http://www.libvirt.org/storage.html ==== API for Host Interface Configuration ==== The Shared Network Interface feature[1] was deferred to Fedora 12 while David Lutterkort continues to work on netcf[2] (FWN #164[3]). Now Laine Stump has posted[4] "a first attempt at the public API that will hook up to libnetcf on the libvirtd side." 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Shared_Network_Interface 2. http://people.redhat.com/dlutter/netcf/ 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue164#netcf_Network_Interface_Configur… 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00397.html ==== Web Based libvirt Management ==== Radek Hladik is developing[1] "a simple web application in PHP to monitor and control VMs using libvirt." The stateless nature of the web presents efficiency problems when each action must call out to the virsh command. Radik sought advice on picking from a list of approaches. Daniel Berrange picked[2] door number two, which is to create a libvirt-aware Zend extension in C. "A few people have expressed interest in this idea in the past, but unforatuntely I'm not aware of anyone having written any code for this yet. We'd very much like to see a PHP binding for libvirt developed & happy to give advice/support to anyone attempting this." Russell Haering mentioned[3] a Django (python) WebApp he's working on, called virtadmin[4]. To bridge the stateless to stateful gap, the "system consists of a python daemon used for actual libvirt interaction and a separate django web interface that interacts with the daemon via AMF over https." Although more of an appliance, it is also worth mentioning oVirt[5]. "oVirt is a small host image that provides libvirt service and hosts virtual machines and a web-based virtual machine management console." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00402.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00407.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00409.html 4. http://trac.osuosl.org/trac/virtadmin 5. http://ovirt.org/ -- Oisin Feeley http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OisinFeeley

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Update and Report on Fedora August 2008 Intrusion
by Paul W. Frields 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

This communication provides additional information on the Fedora infrastructure intrusion first reported on August 14, 2008. In part this communication reiterates information provided in previous announcements. On August 12, 2008, a failed cron job on a Fedora host reported an error to the Fedora system administrators. While investigating the source of this error, the sysadmins reviewed the recent logs and discovered that the package complement on the host had changed. Further investigation showed that changes were the result of tampering by an intruder. Once the extent of the problem was discovered, we notified the community: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-August/msg00008.h… The compromise was not the result of a software vulnerability, and as we have previously stated, our investigation has revealed no such vulnerabilities. Instead, the intruder took a copy of a SSH private key which was not secured with a passphrase from a system outside the Fedora infrastructure. The intruder then used that key, which belonged to a Fedora administrator, to access Fedora systems. In addition, based on system log sudo entries, we believe the intruder also compromised that user's password. New security policies for Fedora administrators directly address the further safeguarding of keys, as noted below. The Fedora package signing key was present on a system to which the intruder had access during the time of the event, but the results of our investigation did not lead us to believe the intruder accessed the key. The intruder used the account's privileges to build modified versions of openssh and rpm. These packages would have allowed the intruder to capture the passphrases of unwitting users on our build system, or the passphrase used to secure the package signing key. With the signing key's passphrase and access to that key, the intruder would have been able to fraudulently sign packages. The intruder did deploy the modified packages, and the modified SSH package may have captured passphrases for a short time. However, the investigation supports the conclusion that the modified packages were discovered before anyone accessed the system to sign any packages using the modified RPM package. Therefore, we do not believe the intruder ever had access to the passphrase to the signing key. Nevertheless, previous announcements have explained clearly the precautionary reasons for our earlier decision to deploy a new package signing key. Details on the process and progress of the signing key changes can be found here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/New_signing_key The modified packages were only installed on a small number of Fedora infrastructure systems, and therefore we do not believe Fedora account holders were at significant risk during the time the intruder had these packages in place. We also required passphrase and SSH key changes from Fedora users, to increase our confidence going forward. To reiterate, our analysis supports our initial findings that the Fedora Project infrastructure delivered no software compromised by the intruder to any of its mirrors, or the master repository from which they synchronize content. Our investigation also shows that the intrusion affected only a few internal Fedora infrastructure servers. Most of the mitigation work done by the Fedora Infrastructure team was precautionary, and allows us to have higher confidence in our present and future work. The Fedora Infrastructure team quickly responded to the threat, isolated the systems in question from the network, made snapshots of affected hosts, assessed the damage, and proceeded to rebuild Fedora's entire infrastructure essentially from scratch. By the end of the first week after the event, most essential systems were functioning nominally again. The remainder of the work took close to three weeks to complete fully, and return all systems to normal status. To increase our security posture, the Fedora Infrastructure team now requires all members of the Fedora system administrator groups to use passphrases on their private keys. That policy is found, along with other policies of the Infrastructure team, here: http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/csi/security-policy/ The Infrastructure team is also actively developing a Community Services Infrastructure project (http://fedorahosted.org/csi) and supporting documentation to include these lessons in their guidance. Team members have also worked on deploying SELinux throughout our infrastructure as well as an audit and prelude intrusion detection system for added good measure. Furthermore, the Fedora release engineering team is also leading efforts on further improvements and refinements to Fedora's package signing system and procedures. Community members are invited to contact the appropriate Fedora team if they wish to get involved in any of these processes. The specific facts that emerged during the investigation, which was international in nature, made it necessary to restrict information flowing to the public, to avoid damaging the effectiveness of the investigation. That restriction has been unfortunate, and is not in the ordinary spirit of openness and transparency with which we strive to define the Fedora Project. We appreciate the patience and support the Fedora community has given us over the past several months. We also wish to express our thanks for the technical assistance of the security response team at Red Hat. This report concludes the matter from the Fedora Project's perspective, and provides a final accounting of the intrusion event and response by the Fedora infrastructure and management teams. Following is a detailed time line, in UTC, of activities by Fedora contributors. = = = = = 2008-08-12 01:00:00 - Last packaging signing process from a Fedora admin. Key would have been on host temporarily up until this time. 2008-08-12 07:49:05 - Standard Fedora 'pkgconfig' package installed by the intruder. This package is required to build an 'openssh' package. Intruder proceeds to build a modified 'openssh' package. 2008-08-12 08:10:46 - modified 'openssh' package installed by intruder. 2008-08-12 17:46:50 - Standard Fedora 'gettext' package installed by intruder. This package is required to build an 'rpm' package. 2008-08-12 20:18:36 - Standard Fedora 'mc' package installed by intruder, possibly for convenience of stealth. 2008-08-12 21:33:59 - Bacula backup started (scheduled job) 2008-08-12 22:01:54 - Bacula backup Ended 2008-08-12 22:31:51 - modified 'rpm' package installed (along with standard Fedora package dependencies for 'rpm'). 2008-08-12 22:51:00 - Cron job failed, notified admins. 2008-08-12 22:53:00 - Fedora Infrastructure admins first noticed and started poking around at why RPM had changed. 2008-08-12 23:11:00 - Infrastructure team lead is notified and more prodding begins. 2008-08-12 23:38:00 - Infrastructure team members gather for discussions on dedicated, private IRC channel and conference call. 2008-08-13 01:50:00 - It becomes more clear that a script is not at fault. LVM snapshot taken. 2008-08-13 04:00:14 - Bacula backup (during the intrusion) restored to secure location 2008-08-13 04:04:14 - Discovery of an RPM in /root/.ssh/ provides proof of malicious intent. 2008-08-13 04:05:00 - Red Hat security team notified. 2008-08-13 04:46:00 - Compromised host prohibited from routing out or in. All machines on its network are preventing access from it. Outbound connections logged. 2008-08-13 05:16:00 - Fedora Project Leader notified. 2008-08-13 06:13:00 - Host state saved (Xen guest). We have a running copy of the host as it was without a reboot. 2008-08-13 06:14:00 - Users who have accessed the machine during the intrusion advised to change their passwords and SSH keys. 2008-08-13 10:13:00 - Work continues in concert with Red Hat security team members. Preliminary announcement prepared 2008-08-14 17:36:00 - All passwords and SSH keys disabled. 2008-08-14 23:15:13 - Preliminary announcement to fedora-announce-list, 1+19:11 after initial determination of malicious event. 2008-08-15 02:47:00 - All administrator access forced to shell access only for partial re-enabling of account system. 2008-08-15 12:00:00 - (approximate) Fedora's package build system, koji, patched to revoke all access. 2008-08-15 13:11:00 - Last package build routine allowed to complete before shutdown. Comprehensive verification of the build system database contents begins, comparing against known source for malicious content. 2008-08-16 15:30:03 - Update announcement to fedora-announce-list, 3+11:26 after initial determination of malicious event. 2008-08-17 22:34:00 - Members of sysadmin-web group allowed back on app servers. 2008-08-18 04:06:31 - Primary content verification of build system and CVS completed. 2008-08-18 18:06:00 - CVS admins allowed back on servers, and handle additional verification for hosted projects. 2008-08-19 02:07:45 - Update announcement to fedora-announce-list, 5+22:03 after initial determination of malicious event. 2008-08-19 02:37:00 - Hosted project verification completed, and Fedora Hosted back online. 2008-08-19 20:19:00 - Anonymous access via cvspserver allowed. 2008-08-20 02:53:00 - Writable access to cvs1 reactivated. 2008-08-20 18:35:00 - Koji build system officially open and building again. 2008-08-22 12:00:02 - Update announcement to fedora-announce-list, 9+07:56 after initial determination of malicious event. 2008-09-19 02:41:29 - Update announcement to fedora-announce-list, 37+22:37 after initial determination of malicious event. Investigation and issue resolution continues. 2009-03-30 14:00:00 - Final report to fedora-announce-list, 229+9:56 after initial determination of malicious event. = = = = = -- Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

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Reminder: Fedora Board IRC meeting 1800 UTC 2009-04-07
by Paul W. Frields 27 Mar '09

27 Mar '09

The Board is holding its monthly public meeting on Tuesday, 7 April 2009, at 1800 UTC on IRC Freenode. The Board has settled on a schedule that puts these public IRC meetings on the first Tuesday of each month. Therefore, the next following public meeting will be on 5 May 2009. For these meetings, the public is invited to do the following: * Join #fedora-board-meeting to see the Board's conversation. * Join #fedora-board-public to discuss topics and post questions. This channel is read/write for everyone. **CHANGE OF SOP: We're trying something new (albeit in a minor way) in this meeting. The moderator will still be available to gather input from the #fedora-board-public channel, but will voice people, one at a time, in the queue in the #fedora-board-meeting channel. We'll limit time per voice as needed to give everyone in the queue a chance to be heard. If this process works well, we'll use it at later meetings and note the change on the wiki. The Board may reserve some time at the top of the hour to cover any agenda items as appropriate. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting! -- Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

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Fedora Weekly News #168
by Oisin Feeley 23 Mar '09

23 Mar '09

Fedora Weekly News Issue 168 Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 168 for the week ending March 22nd, 2009. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue168 With the Fedora 11 Beta release slipping by one week Announcements reminds the community about "FUDCon Berlin 2009". In PlanetFedora the recent Red Hat patent acquisitions are among several topics covered. Ambassadors reports on the OLPC XO work at Rochester Institute of Technology. QualityAssurance gets excited about "Test Days" for DeviceKit, Xfce and an upcoming one for nouveau. Developments reflects a lot of anxious upgrading and "How to Open ACLs and Find Non-responsive Maintainers". Translation notes the "Upgraded Transifex" and translation to Cornish. Infrastructure advises in "Change Requests" that the infra team is in freeze and lists all the approved recent changes and hotfixes. Controversy rages in "Artwork" over the choice of Greek temple imagery. Yet again SecurityAdvisories lists packages that you want, really, really want. Virtualization worries about "More Flexible x86 Emulator Choice". Needless to say there's lots more to read this week! If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join' page[1]. We welcome reader feedback: fedora-news-list(a)redhat.com 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Oisin Feeley, Huzaifa Sidhpurwala Contents 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 168 1.1 Announcements 1.1.1 Fedora 11 1.1.2 FUDCon Berlin 2009 1.1.3 Upcoming Events 1.2 Planet Fedora 1.2.1 General 1.3 Ambassadors 1.3.1 RIT Pitches in on OLPC Project 1.3.2 Got Ambassador News? 1.4 QualityAssurance 1.4.1 Test Days 1.4.2 Weekly meetings 1.4.3 Wiki changes 1.4.4 Bugzilla status, priority and severity procedures 1.5 Developments 1.5.1 Auto Upgrading YUM Not Worth It 1.5.2 How to Update from Fedora 10 to Rawhide 1.5.3 Fedora 11 Beta Slips by One Week 1.5.4 Finding the Source 1.5.5 Fedorahosted Releases 1.5.6 How to Open ACLs and Find Non-responsive Maintainers 1.6 Translation 1.6.1 Upgraded Transifex 1.6.2 New Coordinators/Members in FLP 1.7 Infrastructure 1.7.1 svn-to-git Mirror 1.7.2 Change Requests 1.8 Artwork 1.8.1 Post-inclusion Feedback for the Beta Artwork 1.8.2 A Possible New Direction for the Wallpaper 1.8.3 Completing all the Graphic Pieces 1.9 Security Advisories 1.9.1 Fedora 10 Security Advisories 1.9.2 Fedora 9 Security Advisories 1.10 Virtualization 1.10.1 Enterprise Management Tools List 1.10.1.1 Virt-p2v and RAID Controller Drivers 1.10.1.2 NetWare Support added to virtinst 1.10.2 Fedora Xen List 1.10.2.1 Which Xen Configuration Files 1.10.3 Libvirt List 1.10.3.1 Xen PCI Device Passthrough 1.10.3.2 Secure Guest Migration Draft Patch 1.10.3.3 More Flexible x86 Emulator Choice == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/ https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events Contributing Writer: Max Spevack === Fedora 11 === Jesse Keating[1] announced[2] that the Beta of Fedora 11 will slip one week, due to some issues with both PPC and anaconda. The new Beta release date is March 31. === FUDCon Berlin 2009 === Max Spevack[3] reminded[4] the community about FUDCon Berlin 2009[5], including registration[6], lodging[7], and speaking[8] opportunities. 1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JesseKeating 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2009-March/msg00015.ht… 3. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-March/msg00005.html 5. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009 6. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009_attendees 7. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009_lodging 8. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon_Berlin_and_LinuxTag_2009_talks === Upcoming Events === March 23-29: LUGM OpenWeek [1] in Manipal, India. March 25: Document Freedom Day in Kolkata, India. March 25: Document Freedom Day in Opera, Italy. March 26: Infotech Niagara Beta Awards[2] in Buffalo, New York, USA. March 26: Ithaca College EdTech Day[3] in Ithaca, New York, USA. March 27-29: PyCon[4] in Chicago, Illinois, USA. March 31-April 2: Linux Solutions[5] in Paris, France. April 1-2: OpenExpo[6] in Bern, Switzerland. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/LUGMopenweek 2. http://www.infotechniagara.org/events/?id=193 3. http://www.ithaca.edu/edtechday/ 4. http://us.pycon.org/2009/about/ 5. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/SolutionsLinux/SolutionsLinux20… 6. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/OpenExpo/OpenExpo2009_Berne == Planet Fedora == In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide. http://planet.fedoraproject.org Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin === General === Rangeen Basu Roy Chowdhury explained[1] how to build a Live USB stick from a Live CD image. Another option, suggested in the comments, is to use the liveusb-creator[2]. Paul W. Frields described[3] some of the preparations that the Fedora Marketing team has been making for Fedora 11, including in-depth articles on some of the new features. Richard Hughes showed off[4] an updated Gnome PackageKit update viewer. Rob Tiller, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, IP at Red Hat responded[5] to concerns within the community about Red Hat's patenting efforts and the Red Hat Patent Policy[6]. Paul W. Frields wrote[7] about the response, and a lively discussion in the comments ensued. David Woodhouse posted[8] about some documentation he had written to support Greylisting and the exim-greylist package shipped with Fedora. Jef Spaleta wrote[9] his "most important Fedora blog post ever" which revolves around the "NSF sponsored workshop on Sustainable Cyberinfrastructure"[10]. The workshop is important "for people who believe in either the function of basic science research as a catalyst for technical and social progress or people who believe strongly in open development methodologies as a catalyst for deeper and more impactful collaborations. Even more so if you happen to be in the union of those groups and a US citizen and care about how the NSF as a Federal agency goes about funding research and education." As an interesting aside, Dave Jones mentioned[11] that it takes two days and twenty minutes to run badblocks on his new 1TB hard drives. Richard W.M. Jones worked[12] on building a minimal Fedora installation and managed to get an installed system down to 225MB. He later responded[13] to a comment about why it makes sense to minimize Fedora as opposed to building a custom minimal distribution. And then he managed[14] to get the minimal distribution down to 15.9MB. Amit Shah benchmarked[15] various filesystems (including ext4) to find out how well they handled pre-allocation of disk space and the new Linux fallocate support. 1. http://sherry151.blogspot.com/2009/03/live-usb-magic.html 2. https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/ 3. http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=1437 4. http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/03/17/the-next-update-viewer/ 5. http://www.press.redhat.com/2009/03/17/discouraging-software-patent-lawsuit… 6. http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html 7. http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=1536 8. http://www.advogato.org/person/dwmw2/diary.html?start=201 9. http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/37433.html 10. http://cisoftwaresustainability.iu-pti.org/ 11. http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/2009/03/19/badblocks-1tb-drive/ 12. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/why-minimal-is-225-mb/ 13. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/why-not-use-a-minimal-distribution/ 14. http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/febootstrap-minimal-now-159-mb/ 15. http://www.amitshah.net/2009/03/comparison-of-file-systems-and-speeding.html == Ambassadors == In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors Contributing Writer: Larry Cafiero === RIT Pitches in on OLPC Project === (This item corrects a report on this topic filed in FWN Number 166) The Fedora OLPC project seems to have found a friend at Rochester Institute of Technology[1]. Fedora Ambassador Karlie Robinson met RIT professor Stephen Jacobs at an OLPC Grassroots meeting on January 22 and learned of Jacobs' interest in doing a class around the XO. Days later, David Nalley announced the Fedora Ambassador Developers Project and Karlie brought Professor Jacobs up to speed on what Fedora is doing around the XO,[2] where Fedora is providing XOs to those who will do development work. The deal revolved around getting XOs for Jacobs classroom in exchange for the RIT students working on Greg DeKoenigsberg's 4th Grade Math project[1]. 1. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Rochester,_NY 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-olpc-list/2009-February/msg00033.html === Got Ambassador News? === Any Ambassador news tips from around the Fedora community can be submitted to me by e-mailing lcafiero-AT-fedoraproject-DOT-org and I'd be glad to put it in this weekly report. == QualityAssurance == In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA === Test Days === This week we had two test days, far more exciting than the boring regular one! The first[1] was on DeviceKit[2], which will replace HAL for disk and power management in Fedora 11. Turnout was not the highest, but those who came along were able to find several issues which are being addressed with the help of some of the developers involved, including David Zeuthen and Matthias Clasen. The second test day[3] was on Xfce[4], which is being updated to a major new release (4.6) in Fedora 11. A group of enthusiastic Xfce users showed up and were able to do some productive testing and refining of the Xfce environment together with the lead packager for Fedora, Kevin Fenzi. Next week's test day[5] will be on Nouveau[6], the new default video driver for NVIDIA cards for Fedora 11. This is a very important event, as NVIDIA graphics cards are the most popular type, and the new driver is a fairly big change, so we need testing on a wide range of hardware to make sure it's ready. A live CD will be available for the day so you'll be able to test without a Rawhide installation. It will be held on Thursday (2009-03-26) in the #fedora-qa channel on Freenode IRC. If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, please make sure to come along, or - if you can't make it on the day - do the tests and fill out your results on the page another day. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-17 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DeviceKit 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-19 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Xfce 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-26 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NouveauAsDefault === Weekly Meetings === The QA group weekly meeting[1] was held on 2009-03-18. The full log is available[2]. James Laska reported good progress in his work on the Semantic test result reporting extension for mediawiki. Packaging is complete and he is next planning to put up a test instance of mediawiki with the plugin enabled. Adam Williamson reported that the Intel graphics adapter test day had been a success, and a follow-up event was in the works. He also reported that a Radeon test day had not yet been planned and promised to follow that up with the appropriate developers. Jesse Keating was asked to report on the status of the beta release. He said that current Rawhide and particularly Anaconda was still too unstable and said he expected the beta release would slip if he could not get a Rawhide tree with a good Anaconda soon. He requested further testing of Rawhide installation from the QA group, and some help from the main QA group and the Bugzappers group on organizing and checking existing bug reports against Anaconda. Adam Williamson reported that the Xfce test day was fully planned, and Kevin Fenzi reported that he had successfully generated some live CD images for the test day. Adam asked if someone could make sure these images would be available for download. The Bugzappers group weekly meeting[3] was held on 2009-03-17. The full log is available[4]. John Poelstra asked for feedback on the draft Standard Operating Procedure for new memberships which he had sent to the mailing list. The group generally approved of the draft. It was also agreed that the 'triagers' and 'fedorabugs' groups in FAS should be merged or linked, so that anyone who joined the triagers group automatically becomes a member of fedorabugs. Edward Kirk proposed not putting the SOP online and into operation until the appropriate changes have been made in FAS, and this was agreed. Christopher said he will send a draft of the new 'How to Triage' page to the mailing list for discussion in the coming week. The group discussed Adam Williamson's draft front page for the Wiki area. Discussion centred on the links in the Tools and Procedures section. Adam explained that he expected further work on the Wiki to clean up and merge the pages linked to in that section, so the number of links would be smaller. Christopher Beland fixed the links in the draft which were broken. Christopher proposed putting up the new page immediately and then working to clean up the pages further down the hierarchy, and this was agreed by the group. The group discussed the revised Components and Triagers[5] wiki page and agreed the new layout was good. John Poelstra did not like the static statistics. Adam Williamson pointed out that it is planned to replace them with dynamically updated data from Brennan Ashton's metrics tool once it is complete. John Poelstra brought up the potential meeting time and date change. Adam Williamson promised to send a mail to the mailing list summarising the results of the matrix survey to see if a definite conclusion could be made about whether to move the meeting. The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-03-25 at 1700 UTC (note changed time, in UTC reference frame) in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-03-18 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings 2. http://www.happyassassin.net/extras/fedora-qa-20090318.log 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2009-Mar-17 5. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components_and_Triagers === Wiki Changes === Adam Williamson announced[1] that he had added a new column to the Components and Triagers[2] wiki page to make it easy to find out who is the maintainer of a given component (and other information on it). Christopher Beland changed[3] the stock response text for EOL bugs in an attempt to make it friendlier. Adam pointed out[4] that changes to the stock responses should be mirrored in the GreaseMonkey script. Chris also announced[5] a draft of a new How to Triage page for the group's feedback. Adam and Milos Jakubicek both approved of Chris' work and provided some suggestions to improve it. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00885.html 2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components_and_Triagers 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00926.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00937.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00931.html Bugzilla status, priority and severity procedures Christopher Beland began a discussion[1] about the use of various statuses, resolutions and the priority and severity fields in Bugzilla. Adam Williamson pointed out[2] that some of the more unconventional statuses and resolutions come from the RHEL side, where there is a specific and carefully defined workflow, and these statuses do not always mean exactly what they might appear to. Further to this, Tom Lane noted[3] that the Bugzilla page defining each status[4] contains accurate information on the RHEL workflow. He then suggested[5] that a similar page should be created to define a standard workflow for Fedora bugs, and included in Bugzilla. Jesse Keating suggested[6] that instead, the Fedora and RHEL workflows should be merged so that both would use the same statuses and resolutions in the same ways. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00942.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00943.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00949.html 4. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/page.cgi?id=fields.html#status 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00960.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00962.html == Developments == In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel mailing list are summarized. Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley === Auto Upgrading YUM Not Worth It === A discussion over the possible ways to upgrade from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11 was started[1] by Gerry Reno when he asked why preupgrade[2] from Fedora 10 only presented Rawhide as an option and not Fedora 11 Alpha. A quick answer posted[3] by Gianluca Sforna mentioned the technical difficulties of tracking the versions of packages included in the alpha release. Paul W. Frields was[4] concerned that anyone trying such an upgrade made sure to update rpm before upgrading. This latter point spawned[5] a longish thread in which the possibility of making YUM take care of checking to see whether a newer version of itself or rpm is available. Will Woods suggested[6] that running preupgrade instead of doing a `yum upgrade' avoided all that confusion. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01145.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PreUpgrade 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01147.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01168.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01185.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01254.html How to Update from Fedora 10 to Rawhide When "nodata" reported[1] that an attempt to update rpm resulted in errors and preupgrade also failed he concluded[2] that the instructions[3] on the wiki were flawed. Seth Vidal and Jesse Keating were[4] sure that "nodata" was not using the correct procedure which they stated as a two stage process with the first step being a: yum update rpm with the Fedora 10 repository enabled and then to enable the Rawhide repository and do a general: yum update Unfortunately this seemed[5] to not work for "nodata" and Michael A. Young's suggestion[6] that a "[...] temporary issue with F10 having a more recent version of audit-libs than rawhide [...]" seemed like a promising lead. "Nodata" resolved[7] problem by using the rescue CD to do a "rpm -e --nodeps" and then "rpm --rebuilddb". 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01227.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01245.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_11_Beta_release_notes#RPM_issues 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01250.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01253.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01266.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01231.html === Fedora 11 Beta Slips by One Week === Jesse Keating announced[1] that Release Engineering, QA and maintainers had agreed that the beta release of Fedora 11 would slip by seven days due to several issues mostly related to the rewrite of anaconda storage. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01163.html === Finding the Source === A request was posted[1] for help in finding the Fedora kernel sources by Joe Ovanesian. A quick pointer was given[2] by Tom Diehl: # yum install yum-utils # yumdownloader --source package_name Eric Sandeen wondered[3] if it might be better to use the upstream repositories and Joe explained[4] that his objective was to build a new kernel from source and use KGDB[5] to gain familiarity with the source. Todd Zullinger pointed[6] to a goldmine of information on the topic on the wiki[7]. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01100.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01101.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01130.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01151.html 5. http://kgdb.linsyssoft.com/ 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01154.html 7. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Building_a_custom_kernel === Fedorahosted Releases === Jon Stanley posted[1] a quick note to say that he had made it easier to specify the upstream source URL in specfiles due to a change in fedorahosted.org 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01015.html === How to Open ACLs and Find Non-responsive Maintainers === A couple of related threads dealt with the need to deal with a package which lay dormant apparently due to maintainer inactivity. Manuel Wolfshant had inquired[1] earlier in the week about the allowing the provenpackagers to fix the gdal package. Jon Stanley promised[2] to re-add a ticket dealing with the issue to an upcoming FESCo meeting. In a separate thread the latest Rawhide Report[3] led Kevin Kofler to ask[4] for an opening of the ACLs on gdal[5] so that it could be fixed for multiple dependent packages. When Jesse Keating asked[6] Alex Lancaster if he started the non-responsive maintainer process the answer appeared[7] to be that it was Jesse himself. In an aside MilosJakubicek provided[8] links to the current process. Alex seemed[9] to demonstrate clearly that the maintainer was inactive. 1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00962.html 2. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01035.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01234.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01268.html 5. GDAL is a library to handle Geographic Information Systems data 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01296.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01301.html 8. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01298.html 9. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg01303.html == Translation == This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee === Transifex Upgraded === The backend for the statistics and submission page of FLP - translate.fedoraproject.org, has been migrated[1] to the new version of Transifex[2]. Submission of translations would continue via the new Transifex instance. Additionally, generation of translations statistics would also be done by this tool. All the modules from the damned-lies instance, used to generate statistics earlier, are now part of the transifex instance[3]. The new translate.fedoraproject.org page also allows translators to put temporary locks on files that they are currently translating. Bugs about the FLP transifex instance can be filed in the Red Hat bugzilla (Fedora-L10n/Transifex component) and bugs about Transifex are to be reported in the upstream Transifex trac[4]. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00147.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00127.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00135.html 4. http://transifex.org/newticket === New Coordinators/Members in FLP === Steven Whitehouse joined the FLP [1][2] to start the Cornish language translation team. Kris Thomsen is the new Danish team coordinator[3]. 1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00123.html 2. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00125.html 3. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00111.html == Infrastructure == This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-infrastructure-list http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure Contributing Writer: Huzaifa Sidhpurwala === svn-to-git Mirror === Jim Meyering said [1] that he would like to set up an svn-to-git mirror for a project on fedorahosted. The mirror was set up[2] and will be maintained by him at the Red Hat Emerging Technology Group webspace. It is not open for ssh access to people outside of Red Hat, so it's rather limited. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 2. http://git.et.redhat.com === Change Requests === Due to the impending release of Fedora 11 beta, the infrastructure team is in a change freeze right now. The following change requests were made during the week: 1. [1] Change a piece of code in fas2 which would reduce a particular loop time from 5 mins to 8 seconds. This change was approved and the hotfix was put on the server. 2. [2]Add redirect from /legal/trademarks/guidelines to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines. This change was approved. 3. [3] Make transifex run under transifex user and not apache user. This change was also approved and committed. 4. [4] Change request to update transifex on app1 to the 0.5 version. The change was approved. 5. [5] Remove Fedora8 from the infofeed updates: Somehow fedora8 is still being looked for for the infofeed rss feed on planet.fedoraproject.org. This was approved and changes were made. 6. [6]Use single quotes for the mysql backup cronjob,this has been causing us to get extra cron spam (and stalling mysql updates). Again this change was approved and committed. 7. [7]Make sure inactive accounts can't auth to other webapps. Approved and committed. 8. [8] Minor bodhi update. Changes include. Again approved and applied. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… 8. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-March/msg001… == Artwork == In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei === Post-inclusion Feedback for the Beta Artwork === After the new wallpaper design was included in Rawhide and presented to the users, the feedback process started.Jef Spaleta forwarded[1] a concern raised on the OLPC list[2] by Mikus Grinbergs, about the religious implications of using a temple "Seems to me whoever chose the background that was introduced last week did not consider that items with overtones of dissentious subjects such as politics or religion might elicit emotional reactions. I'm concerned that when my system prominently shows a picture with a temple, that might be interpreted as 'Mikus worships paganism'." Martin Sourada did not[3] support this reaction: "I don't see a valid reasoning there. There is vast difference between you worshiping ancient Greece gods (not that it would be something bad if you actually do) and having a huge Zeus' temple wallpaper hanging on your wall, let alone the wallpaper in your PC." Paul Frields explained[4] "the conveyance as far as I know is simply to acknowledge the heritage of the 'Leonidas' name. Any other inference is probably a stretch" and Brian Hurren also supported[5] this line of reasoning: "I think that the modern meaning of a Zeus temple is a lot broader now than it was before. Kind of like an old abbey in England would have a different meaning now." The conversation was spiced by a very sarcastic reaction[6] from Máirín Duffy "I'm just too distraught to carry on. I feel like my entire world is full of these things symbolizing other things, and I'm finding myself strangely offended by everything." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00100.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-olpc-list/2009-March/msg00147.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00101.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00103.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00107.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00104.html Matthias Clasen raised[1] another kind of criticism regarding the composition: "IMO it is really overloaded with all too well-known motifs, to the extent that it appears almost like a satire of a constructed background image. I mean, it has clouds and mountains and doves and a black forest and a green lawn _and_ a greek temple. Any 2 out of these 6 might combine to a nice background, but all six are just too much for my taste", a kind of positive feedback appreciated[2] by Máirín as the purpose of releasing the graphic concepts early "Thank you for the feedback. Receiving this kind of feedback is exactly why we aimed to get a wallpaper into the beta." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00109.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00111.html === A Possible New Direction for the Wallpaper === Considering the received feedback Máirín Duffy, raised the idea[1] of a possible change of direction and going with a different theme, islands "I saw the movie Mama Mia this weekend for the first time, and it's a movie based on a pretty Greek island" or Mount Olympus "we could take the temple out of the current wallpaper and focus a bit more wholly on the mountains as the symbol of Greece rather than the temple", with Martin Sourada supporting[2] a simplification of the 'temple' image "Hm... I'd say get rid of the trees or make them just complimentary part of the wallpaper, drop the focus away from mountains and instead have it on the temple" and Nicu Buculei wished for[3] more time to gather post-beta feedback "possibly this will make Paul nervous and it may put some deadlines in danger, but before committing to a radical change, I think it would be useful to see the post-beta feedback from a larger mass the users: the first wave of reviews, blogs and forum talks (the perception setters). We all here, supporters or critics, are pretty much subjectively involved and I think a breath of fresh air from the outside is valuable." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00112.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00117.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00137.html === Completing all the Graphic Pieces === Máirín Duffy posted[1] on @fedora-art a template proposal for various banners which would be used in Fedora 11 "What do you think about this as a base style to go with for the various banners/splashes for F11?" and asked the team for opinions about the Greek cultural motifs "Is it too over-the-top Greek? I was trying to go for a subtle and contemporary interpretation of a classic Greek motif." Charles Brej was enthusiastic and started working on a Plymouth theme[2] based on it "I do like. Simple yet styled. I made a plymouth splash based on it" and Nicu Buculei proposed[3] combining with the wallpaper image "I would like them more vivid, maybe combined with the photo we are going to use as a background?" a proposal took and improved[4] Máirín, in what Paul Frields calls[5] "art volleys". 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00145.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00151.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00159.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00160.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00162.html == Security Advisories == In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce Contributing Writer: David Nalley === Fedora 10 Security Advisories === * mldonkey-3.0.0-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00617… * evolution-data-server-2.24.5-4.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00666… * opensc-0.11.7-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00673… * bugzilla-3.2.2-2.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00687… * ejabberd-2.0.4-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00735… * drupal-cck-6.x.2.2-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00757… * weechat-0.2.6.1-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00763… * thunderbird-2.0.0.21-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00769… * ghostscript-8.63-5.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00772… === Fedora 9 Security Advisories === * mldonkey-3.0.0-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00542… * wireshark-1.0.6-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00652… * bugzilla-3.2.2-2.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00664… * evolution-data-server-2.22.3-3.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00672… * ejabberd-2.0.4-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00675… * opensc-0.11.7-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00686… * weechat-0.2.6.1-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00750… * drupal-cck-6.x.2.2-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00758… * ghostscript-8.63-2.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00770… * thunderbird-2.0.0.21-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00771… == Virtualization == In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora virtualization technologies. Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley === Enterprise Management Tools List === This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list ==== Virt-p2v and RAID Controller Drivers ==== Based on Fedora 10, "virt-p2v is an experimental live CD for migrating physical machines to virtual machine guests." [1] Jonathan Pregler[2] and Nick Haunold asked about a lack of HP and Dell RAID drivers in virt-p2v. No answer was found, but Jonathan Pregler is now working[3] on creating a SUSE live CD with virt-p2v and the RAID drivers embedded. 1. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-p2v/ 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00075.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00085.html ==== NetWare Support added to virtinst ==== John Levon patched[1] pngpython-virtinst to support NetWare PV installs. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00065.html === Fedora Xen List === This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list. ==== Which Xen Configuration Files ==== Urs Golla was confused[1] "about the configuration files for XEN user domains in Fedora." Daniel P. Berrange[2] explained that parts of Xen uses different configuration formats. * xend stores master config files in SXPR[3] format in /var/lib/xend. * xm stores python-like config files in /etc/xen "XenD itself has no knowledge of these files," (in /etc/xen) "so it can't manage them. They should not be used in Xen >= 3.0.4 If you have existing files in /etc/xen, then you can load them into XenD by doing 'xm new configname', at which point both Xend and libvirt will be able to manage them. For Xen < 3.0.4 libvirt has some limited support for reading /etc/xen files directly" Using pnglibvirt and the virsh command, the above configuration files are essentially obviated. Instead an intermediate XML configuration[4] can be modified and applied back to xend. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00043.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00054.html 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression 4. http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html === Libvirt List === This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list. ==== Xen PCI Device Passthrough ==== A patch[1] from Daniel P. Berrange "provides initial support for PCI device passthrough in Xen, at time of boot. It does not (yet) implement device hotplug for PCI". "XenD only supports 'unmanaged' PCI devices - ie mgmt app is responsible for detaching/reattaching PCI devices from/to host device drivers. XenD itself won't automatically do this". 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00270.html ==== Secure Guest Migration Draft Patch ==== Chris Lalancette followed[1] the RFC[2] of last week with a "rough first draft of the secure migration code" and sought comments on the approach before putting the final polish on it. Daniel Veillard wasn't enitrely satisfied[3] with the "costs related to the 64KB chunking imposed by the XML-RPC" and was "Trying to reopen a bit the discussion we had before on opening a separate encrypted connection". Daniel Veillard "would like to make sure we have room in the initial phase to add such a negociation where an optimal solution" on a dedicated TCP/IP connection "may be attempted, possibly falling back to a normal XML-RPC solution". Daniel P. Berrange pointed[4] out "This isn't XML-RPC. This is our own binary protocol using XDR encoding, which has very little metadata overhead - just a single 24 byte header per 64kb of data.", and poposed a 'MIGRATION_INCOMING' message which could cause libvirted to "switch the TCP channel to 'data stream' mode." Chris Lalancette tested the migration code and found the draft secure migration caused a "slowdown of between 1.5 and 3 times". "What I'm going to do early next week is do some additional work to try to get DanB's suggestion of the STREAM_DATA RPC working. Then I'll try benchmarking (both for duration, and CPU usage)". 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00276.html 2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue166#Secure_Guest_Migration_Between_… 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00338.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00341.html ==== More Flexible x86 Emulator Choice ==== Daniel P. Berrange explained[1] the current pnglibvirt restricts "what emulator binary we allow for QEMU guests on x86 arches". "This patch makes QEMU driver more flexible" ... "when setting up its capabilities information." "This should finally remove the confusion where a user in pngvirt-manager selects 'i686' and then wonders why we've disallowed choice of 'kvm'. It also fixes 'virsh version' when only qemu-kvm is installed." The path to each emulator binary is hardcoded in libvirt. Daniel Veillard found[2] this approach "worrying". The merge[3] of pngqemu and pngkvm will make the reliance on a pathname to determine a binary's capabilities even less tenable. Daniel P. Berrange agreed [4]"this approach we're currently using has pretty much reached the end of its practicality. In particular it is impossible to solve the problem of figuring out whether a plain 'qemu' binary supports kvm natively. To adress that, we'd actually need to run the binary and probe its output. This would require pretty much re-writing this entire capabilities setup logic from scratch. Similarly coping with varying path locations is another problem we can't easily solve with this current code." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00281.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00339.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/KVM_and_QEMU_merge 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00345.html -- Oisin Feeley http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OisinFeeley

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Fedora Weekly News #167
by Oisin Feeley 16 Mar '09

16 Mar '09

Fedora Weekly News Issue 167 Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 167 for the week ending March 15th, 2009. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue167 This week Announcements links to some helpful "Fedora Classroom IRC Logs" including one on using mock. PlanetFedora big-ups several posts including David Lutterkort's explanation of how config file manipulation can be simplified using XPath to query Augeas. Marketing notes the latest meeting log. QualityAssurance reports that the last "Test Day" for Intel graphics chipsets was valuable and advertizes the next for XFCE. Developments summarizes the "Provenpackager Re-Seed" and watches aghast as the "Mono Conflagration Jumps to Blog". Artwork listens to some ideas about a "Theme Song". Virtualization reports the Xen "dom0 Kernel: Better, Still not Ready" and KVM "Snapshot Support Discussed". If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join' page[1]. We welcome reader feedback: fedora-news-list(a)redhat.com 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Oisin Feeley, Huzaifa Sidhpurwala Contents 1.1 Announcements 1.1.1 Fedora Classroom IRC Logs 1.1.2 Upcoming Events 1.1.2.1 FUDCon Berlin 2009 1.2 Planet Fedora 1.2.1 General 1.3 Marketing 1.3.1 Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-03-10 1.3.2 Fedora 11 Features 80% Complete or Better 1.4 QualityAssurance 1.4.1 Test Days 1.4.2 Weekly Meetings 1.4.3 Bugzappers Wiki Re-organization 1.4.4 Advertising Triage Days 1.4.5 Metrics 1.5 Developments 1.5.1 GSoC InstantMirror 1.5.2 Enhance Anaconda to Enable Repositories As Needed ? 1.5.3 Password Resets and Inactive Accounts 1.5.4 Mono Conflagration Jumps to Blog 1.5.5 Documentation Betas 1.5.6 Provenpackager Re-Seed 1.5.7 Closing Bugs NEXTRELEASE 1.6 Artwork 1.6.1 Theme Song 1.6.2 Artwork for the Beta Release 1.7 Virtualization 1.7.1 Enterprise Management Tools List 1.7.1.1 New Release virt-manager 0.7.0 1.7.1.2 New Release virtinst 0.4.3 1.7.2 Fedora Xen List 1.7.2.1 dom0 Kernel: Better, Still Not Ready 1.7.2.2 Missing Hypervisor Capabilities Restored 1.7.3 Libvirt List 1.7.3.1 Snapshot Support Discussed 1.7.3.2 Memory Ballooning Support for QEMU == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents Contributing Writer: Chris Tyler === Fedora Classroom IRC Logs === Rahul Sundaram noted [1] that IRC logs were available for the Fedora Classroom [2] sessions held on March 7-8: * Introduction to bash shell scripting[3] - Scott McBrien * Training & Tips for Fedora Ambassadors[4] -- Max Spevack * Fedora Trademarks[5] -- Paul W. Frields * Perl Basics[6] -- Doran Barton * Using the Windows cross-compiler[7] - Richard Jones * Introduction to mock, the chroot package builder[8] -- Kevin Fenzi 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-March/msg00003.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Classroom 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Introduction_to_bash_shell_scripting_Classroo… 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Training_and_Tips_for_Fedora_Ambassadors_Clas… 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Trademarks_Classroom_%2820090307%29 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Perl_Basics_Classroom_%2820090307%29 7. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Using_the_Windows_cross-compiler_Classroom_%2… 8. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Mock_Classroom_%2820090308%29 === Upcoming Events === March 21: Free Software Embedded/Hardware workshop in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. March 23-29: LUGM OpenWeek [1] in Manipal, India. March 25: Document Freedom Day in Kolkata, India. March 26: Infotech Niagara Beta Awards[2] in Buffalo, NY, USA. March 26: Ithaca College EdTech Day[3] in Ithaca, NY USA. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/LUGMopenweek 2. http://www.infotechniagara.org/events/?id=193 3. http://www.ithaca.edu/edtechday/ ==== FUDCon Berlin 2009 ==== FUDCon Berlin[1] will be held from June 26 - 28 in Berlin, Germany. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDConBerlin2009 == Planet Fedora == In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide. http://planet.fedoraproject.org Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin === General === Dimitris Glezos analyzed[1] how Fedora's Localization community has grown (hint: a lot). Will Woods mentioned[2] that in Fedora 11, all of the x86 that were previously .i386 will be replaced with .i586 (with requisite kernel arch changes too). Jef Spaleta asked[3]: "How do we want casual users to do a Fedora Desktop install?" In other words, should Fedora be pushing new users towards DVD install media, or installable Live CDs? Joseph Smidt wrote[4] about the massive number of users downloading Fedora. According to the statistics[5], around 100,000 new users have started using Fedora 10 since Fedora 9 (based on unique IPs checking in using yum). Jeroen van Meeuwen responded[6] to an earlier post (that may have lacked context) by explaining how certain dependency checks would be handled in Cobbler for ris-linux and Windows provisioning. David Lutterkort explained[7] how you can use Augeas and XPath to easily and uniformly query a system's configuration files. Bastien Nocera boasted[8] about the new Gnome Volume Applet. 1. http://dimitris.glezos.com/weblog/2009/03/08/flp-advancement-study 2. http://qa-rockstar.livejournal.com/7478.html 3. http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/36540.html 4. http://californiaquantum.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/another-100000-week-for-f… 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics 6. http://kanarip.livejournal.com/11912.html 7. http://watzmann.net/blog/index.php/2009/03/11/querying_system_configuration 8. http://www.hadess.net/2009/03/our-new-volume-feature.html == Marketing == In this section, we cover the Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: Kam Salisbury === Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-03-10 === The meeting log of the 2009-03-10 Fedora Marketing Meeting was made[1] available. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Meeting:Marketing_meeting_2009-03-10 === Fedora 11 Features 80% Complete or Better === The Fedora 11 Features List[1] neared completion. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/11/FeatureList == QualityAssurance == In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA === Test Days === This week's regular test day[1] was on the Intel graphics card driver, particularly kernel mode setting[2]. Kristian Høgsberg was the developer present. Several people showed up and provided valuable testing for the full set of test cases on various chips, giving a good overview of the current state of the driver in several situations. A follow-up event will be held before the release of Fedora 11 to check on the progress of fixes for the identified issues. Further testing in this area is still very helpful: the Wiki page contains full instructions on performing the range of tests, and the Results table is still available, so anyone with an Intel graphics adapter is encouraged to visit the Wiki page, perform the tests, and file bug reports as appropriate. Next week will be special, as two test days are scheduled. A special test day is planned for Tuesday[3], on DeviceKit[4] - the partial HAL replacement scheduled to be included in Fedora 11. Anyone can help with this testing, so please come along and help out at the test day! The regular test day[5] will be on the Xfce desktop environment[6], particularly the new 4.6 release that will be part of Fedora 11. If Xfce is your desktop environment of choice, please come along and help make sure it'll be working properly in Fedora 11. The DeviceKit test day will be held on Tuesday (2009-03-17) and the Xfce test day on Thursday (2009-03-19) in the #fedora-qa channel on Freenode IRC. Please come by to help make sure these features will be in shiny working order for Fedora 11! 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-12 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/IntelKMS 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-17 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DeviceKit 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-19 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Xfce === Weekly Meetings === The QA group weekly meeting[1] was held on 2009-03-11. The full log is available[2]. After a bracing discussion on how to send an apparently empty line to IRC, James Laska reported little progress in his work on making the Semantic test result reporting extension for mediawiki available as a package. He also deferred investigation of X.org test suites for next week. Adam Williamson noted that he had discussed one such suite, rendercheck, with Ben Skeggs, and he will make a package available either as a scratch build or in the official repository to be used in the upcoming nouveau Test Day. The group agreed to see if it might be useful for other graphics test events. Jesse Keating and Will Woods reported that they had not had time to look at a method for identifying bugs caused by GCC 4.4 miscompilation issues. The group evaluated the response to the known bugs in this area, and decided that the responses suggested most issues would be resolved by fixes to GCC itself, and this should not cause major problems. Adam Williamson reported that he and François Cami had spoken to the intel and radeon driver developers about holding test days for those graphics drivers, and were in the process of organizing both events. Jesse Keating reported that a serious bug in squashfs in the Rawhide kernel was causing Rawhide installation to be impossible. This was to be fixed by a kernel update in the following day's Rawhide (which turned out indeed to be the case). He also reported that initial signing of packages for F11 was in progress in chunks, in order to ease the synchronization load for the mirroring system. Jesse also reported that work on the substantial rewrite of Anaconda's storage code was in progress. The group agreed that this was quite close to the beta release, and that it seemed possible there could still be substantial problems in the code at the time the beta should be released, so discussed what kind of problems might be acceptable for a beta release and what might not. Despite some concern on the part of Will Woods, the group agreed to evaluate issues on a case-by-case basis, taking care to make sure all issues in this area were added to the beta release blocker bug so they would be evaluated. The Bugzappers group weekly meeting[3] was held on 2009-03-10. The full log is available[4]. John Poelstra reminded the group to evaluate all bugs with regard to the Fedora 11 blocker ('F11Blocker') and Fedora 11 target ('F11Target') blocker bugs. He also announced that Monday 2009-03-16 will be a bug blocker day, for the maintainers, QA and release engineering groups to go over the list of blocker bugs. The group agreed to require a short self-introduction email to fedora-test-list as the criterion for becoming a member of the fedorabugs group in FAS. Edward Kirk volunteered to write up this procedure into an SOP, as discussed at the previous meeting. The group again discussed the Wiki re-design, particularly how the front page should be laid out and how the main information flow should work from there. Everyone agreed that it was important to keep the front page short and simple and lay out a clear linear path for potential new members to follow. The group agreed to wait for Adam Williamson to finish his combination of Edward Kirk's draft[5] and Christopher Beland's draft[6], with reference to the ideas discussed in the meeting. The group also discussed the new Tracking page (since re-arranged to become Components and Triagers [7]), and agreed it was a good layout, but some of the content that had been merged into it should not have been. Adam Williamson suggested that the statistics be updated regularly and automatically via Brennan Ashton's metrics script. Edward Kirk reported that he had updated the bug workflow graphic[8] to reflect that NEEDINFO is no longer a status, but some members had trouble seeing the updated graphic due to caching issues. The group discussed the potential new meeting time with reference to the availability matrix[9], but did not yet come to a decision. The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-03-18 at 1700 UTC (note changed time, in UTC reference frame) in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-03-11 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings 2. http://wwoods.fedorapeople.org/fedora-qa/fedora-qa-20090311.log.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2009-Mar-10 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tk009/bugzappers 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Beland/BugZappers 7. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components_and_Triagers 8. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/BugStatusWorkFlow 9. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugzappers_meeting_matrix === Bugzappers Wiki Re-organization === Christopher Beland worked hard to revise several areas of the Wiki, including a new Tracking page[1] which combined pages on active triagers, priority triage components, group goals and finding bugs[2]. After feedback from Edward Kirk, John Poelstra and others, this was reduced simply to the Components and Triagers page[3], leaving the others separate for now. Christopher updated these pages also. Adam Williamson submitted his combined new front page draft for the group's review[4]. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Tracking 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00437.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components_and_Triagers 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00662.html === Advertising Triage Days === Christopher Beland pointed out that triage days are not advertised anywhere in the Wiki[1]. Adam Williamson apologized and explained[2] that this is because he is short on time at present as he is taking an internal Red Hat training course during his work days. He welcomed any help from the group in adding information about the triage day events to the Wiki. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00695.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00713.html === Metrics === Christopher Beland reported[1] that he could not access the pages for Brennan Ashton's triage metrics reporting system. Brennan thanked him for the feedback[2] and explained that there was a hardware issue on the server. John Poelstra suggested[3] that the code for the metric system be hosted in the Bugzappers group's git repository. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00693.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00727.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00739.html == Developments == In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel mailing list are summarized. Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley === GSoC InstantMirror === Warren Togami asked[1] for any interested parties to get involved with a GSoC[2] project to improve repository replication to mirrors. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00873.html 2. http://code.google.com/soc/ === Enhance Anaconda to Enable Repositories As Needed ? === Jud Craft reported[1] that installing from the Fedora 10 DVD with the fedora-updates repository enabled resulted in a broken NetworkManager due to a missing dependency on libudev.so.0. Jud pointed out[2] that although he could install the missing library from the DVD the situation would present a serious problem to anyone that tried "[...] a network install with updates [...] the result (a system without network access) can't be fixed without A) network access, or B) another Fedora image (also possibly requiring more network access)." In answer to Jef Spaleta's questions Jud revealed[3] that: "[libudev.so.0] doesn't seem to actually be installed by the stock F10 image. If I do a plain install (no updates), NetworkManager works fine. Running a `yum update' then pulls down all the updates, as well as `Install libudev0'. So at some point I suppose NetworkManager picked up a dependency on libudev0, but for some reason updating during the installation process doesn't pull this new package in." Kevin Kofler[4] and Jesse Keating[5] both pointed out that: "[T]he updates repo isn't the Everything repo. To really do a proper install with updates you have to enable both the Updates repo and the Everything repo." Kevin added that this was why the install from DVD with updates enabled was not an officially supported method. Several people, including Thorsten Leemhuis, suggested[6] that modifying the anaconda installer to be aware of which repositories depend on each other would be useful. Jesse Keating was[7] not averse to the idea as long as it could be done in a "[...] distro agnostic way. Avoiding hardcoded hacks specifically for Fedora is one of the goals of anaconda upstream." Later Jeremy Katz explained[8] that the thinking behind the installer ignoring unsatisfiable dependencies in such cases is to "[...] get someone installed and then let them clean up afterwards[.]" 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00921.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00929.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00938.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00944.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00947.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00953.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00955.html 8. http://://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00976.html === Password Resets and Inactive Accounts === When Mike McGrath was perturbed[1] that so many FAS account holders had failed to reset their passwords recently a discussion of the entanglement of active account status and passwords followed. Many respondents posted that they had received the email notifications but had not needed to, or had not had time to, perform their password reset. Tom Lane worried that forcing periodic password resets caused people to weaken security by writing down their passwords but Bruno Wolf III argued[2] that a potentially bigger threat might be "[...] someone forging messages from Mike with deceptive URLs that trick people into changing their passwords using a hostile proxy. Doing things in the current manner is training people to get fooled." He added that cryptographically signing the reset messages was important. Till Maas requested[3] consistent titling of the password reset notification emails, suggested extending the grace period beyond two weeks and asked that the notification contains the information that the contents of the user's fedorapeople.org home would be moved. Mike McGrath and others explored[4] possible grace periods and numbers of warning emails. Patrice Dumas asked why there was a password reset at all and was answered[5] by Jesse Keating that it was "[...] the best way Infra has today to discover all the active and inactive accounts." In response Toshio Kuratomi pointed[6] to an open ticket which nominally deals with how long accounts should be left open if passwords have expired but had become[7] an investigation of how account inactivity can be determined. After Mike McGrath explained that "[...] we've got thousands of contributors, relatively few of them actually commit to cvs. So we could go around to figure out how to make all of our various auth points report back but that's a lot of work. The account system is the only common point of entry for every contributor [...]" Christopher Aillon suggested[8]: "So let's require to them to simply _log in_ to FAS to reset the timer (you need to do that to change passwords, anyway!)." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00509.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00612.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00710.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00779.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00658.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00677.html 7. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/1237 8. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00812.html === Mono Conflagration Jumps to Blog === Following the FESCo decision not to replace rhythmbox with banshee as the default media-player in Fedora 11[1] some follow-up clarifications were made by parties to the discussion and the conflagration jumped between @fedora-devel and the personal blog of David Nielsen, the Banshee ex-maintainer and perhaps the main force behind the Mono SIG[2]. Bill Nottingham put forward[3] a concise time-line which attempted to show that the proposal had been handled in a straightforward and usual manner. Bill noted that the Desktop SIG had expressed[4] a lack of enthusiasm early in the process and that the imminent beta-freeze meant that the decision had to be taken without further prolonged discussion. AdamWilliamson suggested[5] that because Mono's Microsoft links worried many F/OSS developers it would have been a good idea to address such concerns: "[...] explicitly rather than just pretend they don't exist in your initial proposal (the word 'Mono' does not actually occur a single time in the initial version of the Wiki page you posted)." A question put by Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wondered[6] whether there was anything preventing the Mono SIG from creating their own Fedora spin in which banshee was given pride of place as the default media-player. Rex Dieter confirmed that there were no obstacles on this path. A proposal to adopt a Code of Conduct modeled upon Ubuntu's was[7] made by Richard W.M. Jones. He also expressed regret that David was leaving Fedora and apparently moving to Ubuntu as referenced[8] by a blog entry. Reading the blog suggest that Foresight Linux seems more to David's taste although one comment does point out[9] that Ubuntu "[...] head community people have been calling for volunteers to increase the work surrounding Mono and have a huge love for banshee[10] and Canonical isnt anti-mono since some of their new job postings desire Mono as a skill[11]." Seth Vidal was[12] among those who wondered specifically how such a code could be enforced and also where specifically the Fedora Project could be alleged to have engaged in misconduct on this issue. Reading David's blog seems to suggest both that any rudeness was privately exchanged and that his perception is[13] that "[...] Mono isn't welcome in Fedora, and will always be a second class citizen[.]" 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue166#Fedora_11_Default_Mediaplayer_No… 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Mono 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00529.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2009-February/msg00063.h… 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00526.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00523.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00498.html 8. http://davidnielsen.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/drawing-my-own-conclusion/ 9. http://davidnielsen.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/drawing-my-own-conclusion/#com… 10. http://castrojo.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/monodevelop-rockstar-needed-inquir… 11. http://webapps.ubuntu.com/employment/canonical_GDOS/ 12. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00504.html 13. http://davidnielsen.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/drawing-my-own-conclusion/#com… === Documentation Betas === John J. McDonough posted[1] that owners of major features should review the Beta release notes. Scott Radvan posted[2] that the Security Guide[3] would benefit from the scrutiny of any interested @fedora-devel readers. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00835.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00823.html 3. http://sradvan.fedorapeople.org/Security_Guide/en-US/ === Provenpackager Re-Seed === Jon Stanley asked[1] that everyone read the process by which the "provenpackager" group will be repopulated. A request by Ralf Corsepius for some definitions led Patrice Dumas to post[2] that: "provenpackagers are people who can change all the packages with opened ACLs. Sponsors are the people who can accept new contributors in fedora." Further discussion led[3] Michael Schwendt to voice a concern that non-responsive maintainers might be shielded from feedback if provenpackagers step in to update and upgrade packages. Kevin Kofler offered[4] the non-responsive maintainer process as a way to rectify any problems with Bugzilla tickets being ignored. Michael Schwendt questioned[5] Patrice Dumas in greater detail as to why provenpackagers and sponsors are not equal sets. Further details on how to apply to FESCo to become a provenpackager were elicited[6] from JoshBoyer by Stepan Kaspal. In a separate thread MichelSalim asked[7] about the preferred way to become a sponsor. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00555.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00571.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00581.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00718.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00591.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00594.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00871.html === Closing Bugs NEXTRELEASE === Christoph Wickert requested[1] that all maintainers (and especially Red Hat developers) would "[p]lease fix your bugs [1] in the release they were filed against instead of just closing them NEXTRELASE!" When Rahul Sundaram responded that it depended on the seriousness of the bug and complexity of back-porting Daniel P. Berrange[2] and Rakesh Pandit[3] acknowledged that such complex cases might exist but that suggested that this was often a cop-out which could discourage users. Jeremy Katz responded[4] "[...] as the person who has apparently pissed you off this morning [...]" and described the case in point as much more complex than Christoph had claimed. It seemed that Christoph's ability to create LiveCD images of Fedora 11 using Fedora 10 as the development platform had been stymied by changes to syslinux. Jeremy added that even if this single change were reverted Christoph would need a newer kernel and squashfs-tools and more. Later Jeremy clarified[5] that the combination of livecd-creator + mock were complicated by SELinux but that this had been addressed by recent work. One complication is that Bodhi uses NEXTRELEASE even for updates to stable releases. After some confusion on this point LukeMacken posted[6] that anyone wanting to change the behavior should file a ticket. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00552.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00575.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00572.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00622.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00777.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00672.html == Artwork == In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei === Theme Song === Subodh Bhagat proposed[1] a new artistic initiative: a Fedora theme song. Subodh asked: "Do we have something like a theme song for fedora? Either lyrics or a composition?" The intitiative was saluted by Konstantinos Antonakoglou[2]: "Sounds great! I got some music skills (compose and play) too", Henrik Heigl[3]: "I also think of ideas like a contest", Paul Frields[4]: "I think song in general is a great idea. I'm a musician myself and an appreciator of songwriters", and Keiran Smith[5] all of whom have experience in the field. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00060.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00062.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00064.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00065.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00068.html === Artwork for the Beta Release === In preparation for the upcoming Beta release, Paolo Leoni started[1] the work on a website banner by proposing two graphic concepts, a generic one and another based on the graphics for the Beta wallpaper image "The first is a non-themed version, while the second uses a part of Mo's wallpaper mockup." The general opinion was favourable to the themed version and after a few iterations, Máirín Duffy concluded[2] with a final version[3], a graphic which all the Fedora enthusiast are invited to use on their blogs. On a related note, Paul Frields reviewed[4] the Art's Team release tasks[5] and produced a short list "the listed splashes, headers and other art scheduled for March 27 includes" to check the status "Is the listed date of March 27 enough time to produce these various derivations?" 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00072.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00088.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Image:Deepsky-fedora11-beta-banner_2d.png 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00075.html 5. http://poelstra.fedorapeople.org/schedules/f-11/f-11-art-tasks == Virtualization == In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora virtualization technologies. Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley === Enterprise Management Tools List === This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list ==== New Release virt-manager 0.7.0 ==== Cole Robinson announced[1] a new image:Echo-package-16px.pngvirt-manager[2] release, version 0.7.0. Virtual Machine Manager provides a graphical tool for administering virtual machines for KVM, Xen, and QEmu. Start, stop, add or remove virtual devices, connect to a graphical or serial console, and see resource usage statistics for existing VMs on local or remote machines. Uses image:Echo-package-16px.pnglibvirt as the backend management API. New features: * Redesigned 'New Virtual Machine' wizard (Jeremy Perry, Tim Allen, Cole Robinson) * Option to remove storage when deleting a virtual machine. * File browser[3] for libvirt storage pools and volumes, for use when attaching storage to a new or existing guest. * Physical device assignment (PCI, USB) for existing virtual machines. * Bug fixes and minor improvements. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00058.html 2. http://virt-manager.org/ 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00045.html ==== New Release virtinst 0.4.3 ==== Cole Robinson announced[1] a new image:Echo-package-16px.pngpython-virtinst release, version 0.400.3. virtinst is a module that helps build and install libvirt based virtual machines. It currently supports KVM, QEmu and Xen virtual machines. Package includes several command line utilities, including virt-install (build and install new VMs) and virt-clone (clone an existing virtual machine). This is largely a bug fix release. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00057.html === Fedora Xen List === This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list. ==== dom0 Kernel: Better, Still Not Ready ==== Itamar Reis Peixoto reported[1] success with Michael Young's latest image:Echo-package-16px.pngkernel build[2] and wondered when it could be released. Michael explained, "The current plan is to wait until basic dom0 support makes it into the vanilla kernel, which should happen for 2.6.30, and then decide if dom0 can be enabled and if the patches for full dom0 support can safely be added without affecting ordinary operation." "At the moment there are still things that are broken such as X support in some cases, and there are also Fedora patches that have been omitted because they were tricky to merge, so it is too early to start adding dom0 support to official Fedora kernels." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00046.html 2. http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=1238587 ==== Missing Hypervisor Capabilities Restored ==== There was progress on a bug discovered[1] last week. This missing file /sys/hypervisor/properties/capabilities has been restored[2], however a bug[3] remained[4] in libvirt or virt-install. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue166#dom0_Kernel_Inches_Closer 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00039.html 3. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=489799 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00040.html === Libvirt List === This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list. ==== Snapshot Support Discussed ==== In an attempt to make it easier to backup KVM windows guests, Matt McCowan created[1] a checkpoint virsh function. "Modelled on the virDomainSave[2] function it takes an optional script which it will execute (and pass the name of the domain as an argument) while the domain is paused, then resume the domain." Within this script, a backup of the guest domain could be created. The patch was seen as too ad-hoc, and not accepted as-is. Daniel Veillard commented[3] "I think this can help administrators in a controlled situation, but I'm hoping a real snapshotting API will be possible at some point where image:Echo-package-16px.pnglibvirt goes though the list of storage resources used by the domain and properly make a snapshot using a storage API or return an error if that's not possible." Daniel P. Berrange described[4] what he would like to see. "In terms of API I think I'd like to see snapshotting[5] available as part of a more generic save/restore API. I tend to think of the current API as providing 'unmanaged save/restore'". Libvirt does not track saved images, so does not know if a snapshot is available to be started at the restart of libvirtd." "Thus I think the first step towards a general snapshot facility would be to provide an API for 'managed save/restore' where we explicitly track saved images." "With this, you could configure libvirtd, so that when starting up, it" would "see if the guest was suspended before the previous host shutdown, and if so, then restore from that saved image automatically.[6] Or make it skip autostart completely, if any save images exist, and allow an admin defined initscript to do auto restore from the save image." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00177.html 2. http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virDomainSave 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00199.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00205.html 5. http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/TodoVMSnapshots 6. http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/TodoDaemonRestart ==== Memory Ballooning Support for QEMU ==== Daniel Berrange patched[1] the libvirt QEMU driver to fully support memory ballooning. "Memory ballooning allows you to have your guest dynamically change its memory usage by evicting unused memory during runtime. This is a useful feature because it reduces the impact your guest can have on memory usage of your host by giving up unused memory back to the host."[2] 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00200.html 2. http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/memory-ballooning-feature-coming-soon-kvm -- Oisin Feeley http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OisinFeeley

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FUDCon Berlin 2009 & LinuxTag reminders
by Max Spevack 12 Mar '09

12 Mar '09

Howdy FUDConners! I'm here to remind everyone about the relevant details for FUDCon Berlin 2009 and LinuxTag 2009. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LinuxTag_2009 LINUXTAG: Berlin, Germany. June 24 - 27. FUDCON: Berlin, Germany. June 26 - 28. WHAT: FUDCon is the Fedora Users and Developers Conference, a three-day gathering of programmers, users, administrators, and ambassadors. FUDCon Berlin will consist of speeches (in both English and German) that are both technical and user-focused. Additionally, there will be two days of hackfests, in which various features and projects within Fedora will be be worked on. WHO: You! FUDCon is free to attend. However, because FUDCon is being held in conjunction with LinuxTag, attendees will need a LinuxTag ticket. The Fedora Project will be able to provide these tickets, free of charge, to attendees who pre-register for the event. PRE-REGISTRATION information: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009_attendees HOTEL information: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009_lodging BAR CAMP and HACKFEST signups: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Berlin_2009 This is the PREMIERE FEDORA EVENT in Europe for 2009, and I hopeful that we can have a turnout of 150 or more for the event. See you there, Max

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F-9 and F-10 NetworkManager update issues
by Josh Boyer 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Hi All, Several of you have reported issues with the F-9 and F-10 NetworkManager updates that were pushed last night (March 9) related to an incorrect GPG key. The error output looked like: Public key for NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-3.fc10.i386.rpm is not installed However the key it was signed with was apparently the proper F9 or F10 GPG key. This issue has been resolved for F-10 updates, and will be resolved for F-9 updates relatively soon. In an effort for full discloser, I've included a description of the events that caused this below. Late last evening the NetworkManager update was submitted for a push to fix an issue with the previous update that had caused somewhat of a regression that seems to impact a large number of users. Rel-Eng signed the update with the proper key, and pushed it out via Bodhi. At the same time, Rel-Eng was attempting to get the Fedora 11 Beta packages signed with a newly generated f11-test key that is much larger in size (this is related to the Stronger Hashes Feature that is coming with F11). The use of the larger GPG key requires some different arguments to be passed to rpm for the signing phase, including using --digest-algo sha256. The signing script was being reworked to invoke rpm correctly for this Feature, as well as still work for the current release's GPG keys. When the F-10 and F-9 updates were signed, a stale copy of the signing script was inadvertently used. This contained the new F-11 invocation of rpm with the proper GPG keys, resulting in a validly signed RPM but using SHA256 as the hash type. The F-9 and F-10 RPM versions could detect that the updates had been signed, however due to lack of support for the larger hash type they could not validate the key. The error message reported by RPM is somewhat confusing. This morning the F-9 and F-10 updates were resigned properly and the repos were recreated. This may take some time to filter to all the mirrors, so please have patience. We apologize for the inconvenience. josh, for Fedora Rel-Eng

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Fedora Classroom - March 2009 completed
by Rahul Sundaram 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Hi, The following IRC sessions were conducted as part of the Fedora Classroom effort last weekend. * Introduction to bash shell scripting - Scott McBrien * Training & Tips for Fedora Ambassadors -- Max Spevack * Fedora Trademarks -- Paul W. Frields * Perl Basics -- Doran Barton * Using the Windows cross-compiler - Richard Jones * Introduction to mock, the chroot package builder -- Kevin Fenzi The IRC logs are available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Classroom Thanks to the organizers and participants for some great sessions. Rahul

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Fedora Weekly News #166
by Oisin Feeley 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

Fedora Weekly News Issue 166 Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 166 for the week ending March 8th, 2009. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue166 A small sample of this issue's stories reflects the imminent release of Fedora 11! Announcements lists the freeze dates and upcoming Fedora events. PlanetFedora rounds up essential blog reading including a piece by Thomas Vander Stichele on "meltdown analysis". Marketing cheers for "One Million New Fedora 10 Installations". In QualityAssurance a reminder that the next of the "Test Days" is of interest to Intel video users is just one of the items reflecting a massive amount of QA activity. Ambassadors relates some OLPC news from Rochester Institute of Technology. Developments explains why "Orphans are Purged" and asks are we "Ready for a New RPM Version?". Translation highlights a "Study about FLP". Artwork stares at the wallpaper while "Preparing for the Beta Release". SecurityAdvisories lists stuff to help you avoid a rooting. Virtualization pops some salient items out of the development maelstrom including a "New Release of libvirt-0.6.1" and SELinux "sVirt Support Committed". There's a lot more, so keep reading! If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join' page[1]. We welcome reader feedback: fedora-news-list(a)redhat.com FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Oisin Feeley, Huzaifa Sidhpurwala Table of Contents 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 166 1.1 Announcements 1.1.1 Fedora 11 1.1.2 Upcoming Events 1.1.2.1 FUDCon Berlin 2009 1.2 Planet Fedora 1.2.1 General 1.2.2 Education 1.3 Marketing 1.4 Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-02-26 1.5 One Million New Fedora 10 Installations! 1.6 Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-03-03 1.7 Ambassadors 1.7.1 RIT Pitches in on OLPC Project 1.7.2 Fedora at CUE 1.7.3 Got Ambassador News? 1.8 QualityAssurance 1.8.1 Test Days 1.8.2 Weekly Meetings 1.8.3 Bugzappers Wiki Re-organization 1.8.4 20 Second Boot Test Day Follow-up 1.8.5 Bugzappers Meeting Schedule 1.8.6 Ubuntu Triage Discussion 1.8.7 Introduction Emails 1.9 Developments 1.9.1 Orphans are Purged 1.9.2 Fedora 11 to Ship Tiger VNC 1.9.3 Ready for a New RPM Version ? 1.9.4 Windows Cross-compiler Added to comps.xml 1.9.5 Anaconda Default of Separate / and /home Partitions 1.9.6 Beta Freeze and String Freeze this Tuesday 2009-03-10 1.9.7 Fedora 11 Default Mediaplayer Not Banshee. Mono to Blame ? 1.10 Translation 1.10.1 FLP Infrastructure Team Meeting 1.10.2 Statistics Page and Submission Outage 1.10.3 Publican Documents Now on tfp.org 1.10.4 F11 String Freeze Reminder 1.10.5 Study about FLP 1.10.6 New Members in FLP 1.11 Artwork 1.11.1 Echo Weekly News 1.11.2 Preparing for the Beta Release 1.11.3 Working on the Picture Book 1.12 Security Advisories 1.12.1 Fedora 10 Security Advisories 1.12.2 Fedora 9 Security Advisories 1.13 Virtualization 1.13.1 Enterprise Management Tools List 1.13.1.1 Managing Guest OS Types 1.13.1.2 virt-manager Storage Removal 1.13.1.3 virt-install Host Device Assignment Support 1.13.2 Fedora Virtualization List 1.13.2.1 User Interface Makeover for virt-manager 1.13.2.2 New Release virtinst 0.4.2 1.13.3 Fedora Xen List 1.13.3.1 dom0 Kernel Inches Closer 1.13.4 Libvirt List 1.13.4.1 New Release libvirt 0.6.1 1.13.4.2 sVirt Support Committed 1.13.4.3 Secure Guest Migration Between Hosts 1.13.4.4 Hynesim Project Interest in Libvirt == Announcements == In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/ https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents Contributing Writer: Max Spevack === Fedora 11 === Jesse Keating reminded[1] the community that the Fedora 11 Beta freeze[2] is coming this week. "It is scheduled for Tuesday, March 10th. They way we've historically enacted the beta freeze is to tag the content in that day's rawhide into the freeze tag. That is, what gets reported as rawhide-20090310 is the frozen content. As such, your builds need to be complete by 0600 UTC March 10 2009 in order to be in the Beta, without a special request." The string freeze is also on March 10th. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2009-March/msg00006.ht… 2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Beta_Freeze_Policy === Upcoming Events === March 10-12: FOSE[1] in Washington, DC. March 13-15: Chemnitzer Linux Tage[2] in Chemnitz, Germany. 1. http://fose.com/ 2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/CLT === FUDCon Berlin 2009 === FUDCon Berlin[1] will be held from June 26 - 28 in Berlin, Germany. 1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDConBerlin2009 == Planet Fedora == In this section, we cover the highlights of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from Fedora contributors worldwide. http://planet.fedoraproject.org Contributing Writer: Adam Batkin === General === Michael DeHaan responded[1] to a post[2] by Karsten Wade from a few weeks ago titled "Failure as the secret of success". Michael agreed and argued that it is usually impossible to build a piece of software that is 100% perfect for 100% of its users. "Failure is good. Chasing perfect is bad. Making any one aspect perfect or spending too much time on it tends to make other aspects of things bad. We need to get close enough and find some new challenge to work on, so we have more time to iterate and fail a few more times. We all need more time to fail." Thomas Vander Stichele described[3] "an approach to doing meltdown analysis". Also known as a post-mortem analysis, this is a useful process for "when we've gotten into a bad situation involving multiple people that we want to learn from and avoid next time". Harald Hoyer summarized[4] the results from the 20 Seconds Boot Feature Test Day and offered some suggestions for users and developers alike. Matthew Daniels offered[5] some ideas to improve the Fedora documentation by splitting the User Guide into three parts, Practicum, Theory and Appendices & Glossary. Mark J Cox published[6] a set of metrics that tracks security vulnerabilities and the time-to-fix versus their time of disclosure within RHEL. John J. McDonough wrote[7] an article about Fedora, the four Foundations of the project/community and how and why you should join. Richard Hughes explained[8] some of the issues currently associated with installing Applications as opposed to Packages (first by explaining the difference between the terms Application and Package). Along with some other folks, they published a proposed specification[9] that is distribution-agnostic and should allow relevant metadata (including localized content) as well as icons to be efficiently and easily integrated into the local/distribution-specific software installation utility. Scott Williams made[10] The Case for Open Source. Paul W. Frields announced[11] that after working with the Red Hat legal department to revise the Fedora Trademark guidelines, a new version has been released. Among other changes the changes should make building remixes and unofficial spins easier. Chitlesh Goorah posted[12] about the goals of Fedora Electronic Lab[13] (FEL) and also how the project bridges the Open Source software and hardware communities. 1. http://www.michaeldehaan.net/?p=879 2. http://iquaid.org/2009/02/28/failure-as-the-secret-of-success/ 3. http://thomas.apestaart.org/log/?p=783 4. http://www.harald-hoyer.de/personal/blog/20_Seconds_Boot_Feature_Test_Day 5. http://danielsmw.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/user-guide-practicum-theory/ 6. http://www.awe.com/mark/blog/2009030319.html 7. http://wb8rcr.multiply.com/journal/item/98/Join_Fedora 8. http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/03/05/application-installing/ 9. http://cgit.freedesktop.org/packagekit/plain/docs/app-install-v1.draft 10. http://vwbusguy.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/the-case-for-open-source/ 11. http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=1507 12. http://clunixchit.blogspot.com/2009/03/fels-solutions-for-design-centre.html 13. http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL/ === Education === Greg DeKoenigsberg started[1] working on a Sugar activity for 4th Grade Maths[2] called "Dungeons of Mongo". Remember, you too can potentially get a free XO as part of the Fedora Developers XO Program[3]. Chris Tyler announced[4] that the TeachingOpenSource.org[5] is open for business, "a neutral collaboration point for everyone and everything involved in Teaching Open Source". Greg DeKoenigsberg congratulated[6] Chris on the new Teaching Open Source community and provided some points that came up while visiting with people who are in the trenches trying to teach Open Source. Chris responded[7] and suggested that anyone interested should join[8] the mailing list. (As a related sidenote, Teaching Open Source has its own Planet[9] for those interested) Karsten Wade described [10] some of the issues associated with getting kids interested in computers, Open Source and issues with the US educational system in general. Rangeen Basu Roy Chowdhury wrote[11] about a "visit to a high school in a village located on the outskirts of Durgapur and made famous by the DGPLUG project . This project set up a computer lab in a village school where you don't even get proper drinking water and where none of the students would have never had a chance of so as to even see a computer if not for this project." 1. http://gregdek.livejournal.com/47069.html 2. http://sugarlabs.org/go/User:Gdk/4th_Grade_Maths 3. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_developers_XO_program 4. http://blog.chris.tylers.info/index.php?/archives/190-TeachingOpenSource.or… 5. http://teachingopensource.org/ 6. http://gregdek.livejournal.com/47357.html 7. http://blog.chris.tylers.info/index.php?/archives/191-TeachingOpenSource.or… 8. http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/TeachingOpenSource_Mailing_List 9. http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Planet 10. http://iquaid.org/2009/03/06/stumbling-around-in-the-k-12-space/ 11. http://sherry151.blogspot.com/2009/03/blooming-bijra.html == Marketing == In this section, we cover the Fedora Marketing Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing Contributing Writer: Kam Salisbury === Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-02-26 === The meeting log[1] of the February 26th 2009 Fedora Marketing Meeting is now available. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing_meeting_2009-02-26 === One Million New Fedora 10 Installations! === Paul W. Frields, Fedora project leader, declared that there has been "a major up-tick in Fedora involvement over the last 6 months. Since the release of Fedora 10, we've seen about 1 million new installations and approximately 2 million unique visitors to fedoraproject.org each month"[1] 1. http://blogs.computerworld.com/fedora_10_regains_linux_fans?page=1 === Marketing Meeting Log for 2009-03-03 === The meeting log[1] of the March 3rd 2009 Fedora Marketing Meeting is now available. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Meeting:Marketing_meeting_2009-03-03 == Ambassadors == In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors Contributing Writer: Larry Cafiero === RIT Pitches in on OLPC Project === The Fedora OLPC project seems to have found a friend at Rochester Institute of Technology[4]. Fedora Ambassador Karlie Robinson contacted RIT professor Stephen Jacobs and discussed the project, which spurred Jacobs' interest in doing a class around the XO. Karlie brought Professor Jacobs up to speed on what Fedora is doing around the XO[5], where Fedora is providing XOs to those who will do development work. The deal revolved around getting XOs for Jacobs classroom in exchange for the RIT students working on Greg DeKoenigsberg's 4th Grade Math project[1]. So RIT students got XOs and the project got some more help. 1. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing_meeting_2009-02-26 2. http://blogs.computerworld.com/fedora_10_regains_linux_fans?page=1 3. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Meeting:Marketing_meeting_2009-03-03 4. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Rochester,_NY 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-olpc-list/2009-February/msg00033.html === Fedora at CUE === Karsten Wade represented Fedora at last week's Computer-Using Educator (CUE) conference in Palm Springs, California. Karsten gave a talk about the advantages of bringing a culture of participation to the classroom. A detailed report of what happened at CUE can be picked up at Karsten's blog[1], specifically the items entitled "Stumbling around in the K-12 space" and "Moodle as a killer K-12 app." 1. http://iquaid.org/ === Got Ambassador News? === Any Ambassador news tips from around the Fedora community can be submitted to me by e-mailing lcafiero-AT-fedoraproject-DOT-org and I'd be glad to put it in this weekly report. == QualityAssurance == In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA === Test Days === This week's regular test day[1] was on the rewritten handling of storage devices in Anaconda[2]. Dave Lehman, Chris Lumens and Joel Granados were the developers present. Several people showed up and provided valuable testing in a wide range of scenarios, and the developers were able to identify and resolve several bugs. Further testing in this area is still very helpful. The wiki page contains instructions for using a supplementary image while installing Rawhide, to use the new storage code successfully, but the code will soon be available directly in Rawhide, so testing can be performed simply by attempting to install Rawhide in as many different storage scenarios as possible. Next week's test day[3] is tentatively scheduled for testing Intel graphics devices, especially the new kernel mode setting support and identifying performance regressions from Fedora 10. It will be held on Thursday (2009-03-12) in the #fedora-qa channel on Freenode IRC. If you use an Intel graphics card, please come by to help make sure it will be well-supported in Fedora 11 - the more testing, the better the code! 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-05 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AnacondaStorageRewrite 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-03-12 === Weekly Meetings === The QA group weekly meeting[1] was held on 2009-03-04. The full log is available[2]. Will Woods pointed out that the next week's meeting would be an hour earlier for most people, after the onset of Daylight Savings Time. Adam Williamson and Jesse Keating, as the resident West Coast representatives, led a revolt against having to wake up at 7 a.m., and the group agreed to move the meetings to 1700UTC from 2009-03-11. James Laska reported on the progress of the project to make the Semantic test result plugin for mediawiki available. He reported that he is currently trying to make the plugin work in his test setup prior to building a Fedora package for it, as the infrastructure group requires all software used for Fedora systems be available as a Fedora package. Adam Williamson offered to help with the packaging. Will Woods and Jesse Keating reported that there had been no progress on the autoqa systems this week, as Jesse had been tied up doing the mass rebuild of Rawhide. Will Woods reported that 33 of the Fedora 11 proposed features[3] have not yet been reviewed by the QA group to ensure that they include a workable test plan, and appealed for help from the group in getting this process completed. He noted that features for which test days have already taken place are likely to have workable test plans in place, as these are generally necessary for a test day to happen, so suggested at least those features could be quickly reviewed and, most likely, approved. Adam Williamson reported that the test day for the new nouveau driver[4] for NVIDIA hardware was already planned and prepared, but that he was waiting on developer replies for the planned Intel KMS[5] and automatic fonts and MIME installer[6] test days. Jóhann Guðmundsson suggested having a single big graphics test day, but Adam Williamson explained that he did not want to do that as it would be too large and unmanageable. James Laska suggested running the Piglit[7] OpenGL test suite as part of the test days for drivers with usable 3D support (radeon and intel). Jesse Keating reported that the mass rebuild of Rawhide was complete. Adam Williamson pointed out that three large bugs had resulted from GCC 4.4 optimization problems after the rebuild, and Will Woods reported that this had been discussed during the release engineering meeting. Will noted that the new hashing system in RPM was not backwards compatible, the upshot being that those upgrading from Fedora 11 Alpha to current Rawhide need to run 'yum update rpm' first. He queried why yum did not automatically update itself and rpm before other packages, and Jesse Keating explained it was because this would usually bring in hundreds of other packages via Python and glibc dependencies in any case, and so was not worth the effort. Jesse Keating reported that live CD image builds from current Rawhide were not working very well, and Anaconda is often broken while its developers are busy working on the storage rewrite and EFI features. The Bugzappers group weekly meeting[8] was held on 2009-03-03. The full log is available[9]. The group agreed to make sure the two most important Greasemonkey scripts for triagers were easily available in a central place, and this was implemented by making them available directly from the Wiki Tools page[10]. The group discussed Christopher Beland's plan to re-organize the Wiki area. It was agreed that a mailing list discussion should take place to create and agree upon a new front page for the Bugzappers wiki area, and work could then progress on re-writing and re-arranging other pages based on the organization system set up by the new front page. The group also discussed and agreed upon a plan for revising the Components page[11], and Christopher Beland pointed out that the current bug flow diagram is incorrect, as it dates from before NEEDINFO was converted from a bug status into a flag. Edward Kirk bravely volunteered to fix the picture. Finally, the group discussed creating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for Bugzappers, along the lines of those already used by the Infrastructure group. John Poelstra proposed the first SOP cover the procedure for gaining membership in the Bugzappers, and further proposed that it should involve the prospective new member posting a self-introduction email to the mailing list. Christopher Beland and Edward Kirk opposed this as they were worried that some new members would not feel comfortable posting such a message, particularly if it contained personal information. The group agreed to discuss the proposal further on the mailing list. The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-03-11 at 1700 UTC (note changed time, in UTC reference frame) in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-03-10 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting. 1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings 2. http://wwoods.fedorapeople.org/fedora-qa/fedora-qa-20090304.log.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/11/FeatureList 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NouveauAsDefault 5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/IntelKMS 6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller 7. http://people.freedesktop.org/~nh/piglit/ 8. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings 9. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2009-Mar-03 10. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Tools 11. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Components === Bugzappers Wiki Re-organization === Christopher Beland made several proposals[1] on reorganizing the Bugzappers wiki area. This prompted a long discussion. In the end, Christopher was asked to provide drafts for several of his proposed changes for the group to evaluate. Both Christopher and Edward Kirk provided drafts for a new front page. Adam Williamson commented[2] that both drafts had good elements, and offered to create a new draft to try and combine the two. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-February/msg01223.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00290.html === 20 Second Boot Test Day Follow-up === Harald Hoyer posted a follow-up email[1] on the previously-held 20 Second Boot test day[2], pointing to a blog post[3] where he summarized all the useful data he was able to get from the test day. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00057.html 2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/2009-02-19 3. http://www.harald-hoyer.de/personal/blog/20_Seconds_Boot_Feature_Test_Day === Bugzappers Meeting Schedule === Lalit Dhiri proposed[1] having a second meeting to accommodate those whose schedules made it impossible for them to attend the regular group meetings. Adam Williamson said[2] that was not likely to be practical, but suggested that the meeting time could be moved if a time when more group members would be able to attend could be identified. Susan Lauber suggested[3] using the Wiki's meeting matrix template to handle registering who is available when, and set up a Wiki page[4] for the purpose. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00131.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00155.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00165.html 4. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugzappers_meeting_matrix === Ubuntu Triage Discussion === Paul Frields pointed out[1] a long discussion on the topic of bug triaging in Ubuntu[2], and wondered what the lessons for the Bugzappers might be. Adam Williamson suggested that it showed it is important for triagers to follow up on bugs they triage, rather than just touching them once and then never returning, which can leave the reporter more frustrated than if the bug had never been triaged at all. In the ensuing discussion, John Summerfield suggested that triagers should try to cover one area of which they had substantial knowledge rather than attempting to cover all bugs in all components[3], and that the Bugzappers group should remember actively to involve package maintainers in the triaging process[4]. Kevin Kofler explained[5] that, within the KDE SIG, maintainers and triagers do work together and communicate via IRC. 1. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00211.html 2. http://lwn.net/Articles/321473/ 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00312.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00385.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00393.html === Introduction Emails === Adam Williamson mooted the proposal from the weekly meeting that introduction emails be required for new group members[1]. John Poelstra supported the proposal[2], as did Edward Kirk[3]. Christopher Beland suggested[4]that anyone who became active on the mailing list but did not write a formal self-introduction email should also be accepted. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00266.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00314.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00319.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-March/msg00341.html == Developments == In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel mailing list are summarized. Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley === Orphans are Purged === It sounded[1] like Dickensian cruelty when Jesse Keating announced that he would be purging the orphans. All that it meant however was that those packages which were not blocked and had no owners would be "[...] blocked, and will not be shipped with F11." The initial list mistakenly listed EPEL packages and a shorter revised list was posted[2]. A follow-up posted[3] states that packages listed therein will be removed on 2009-03-09 unless volunteers are found to maintain them. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00093.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00103.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00474.html === Fedora 11 to Ship Tiger VNC === Adam Tkac wrote[1] to explain why he had decided "one minute before the beta freeze" to replace TightVNC with the TigerVNC fork. Adam has a history of very actively seeking to merge improvements upstream which in the past led[2] to the replacement of RealVNC with TightVNC when it seemed that the latter was more willing to evolve. The glacial pace of RealVNC development seemed to be correlated with the presence of a non-Free enterprise edition. Adam reported that unfortunately a lack of co-ordination of the TightVNC project had led to the TurboVNC and TightVNC projects deciding that a fork was necessary. An initial mail posted[3] by PeterÅstrand on @tigervnc-users provides some more details. One specific outcome anticipated[4] by KingInuYasha was a "[...] proper implementations of VNC 4 for UNIX like systems [...] Having a VNC implementation that actually is kept up to date with the VNC protocol and is optimized with extensions is something I have been waiting for awhile now." Another hint of good things which may come from a more rapid pace of development was revealed[5] when Daniel Berrange asked about Adam's plans to include the VeNCrypt server-side SSL/TLS extension. This would result in a "[...] consistent TLS extension that's inter operable across all the VNC clients & servers in Fedora." Daniel also mentioned that he had "[...] recently defined & implemented another VNC auth extension based on SASL. This provides for a good extendable authentication capability, most importantly including GSSAPI Kerberos for single sign on. I've got it implemented for QEMU, KVM, GTK-VNC and VINO already, so again it'd be good to plan for adding it to TigerVNC too so we have a widely interoperable strong authentication system." All in all it looks as though contrary to their slogan "The VNC that bites" TigerVNC will be superb. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00213.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue119#Baracuda_To_Replace_VNC_.3F 3. http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=alpine.LFD.2.00.09… 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00217.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00221.html === Ready for a New RPM Version ? === On 2009-02-26 Panu Matilainen asked[1] if it would be possible to introduce RPM-4.7 at this late stage of the Fedora 11 release cycle. This new version decreases memory use and improves performance. Panu emphasized that it was not as large an upgrade as the "[...] 4.4.2.x -> 4.6.0 leap-of-faith upgrade last year [.]" Bill Nottingham was among those who expressed concern that rpm-4.7 would be completely ready for the final release of Fedora 11. He also wondered if there would be incompatibilities with previous rpm version. Panu answered[2] that rpm-4.7 was expected to be ready for the final release and that incompatibilities would only result if packagers used the POSIX file capabilities. This latter is protected against with an rpmlib() dependency. A certain amount of disquiet at the idea of "[g]oing with a beta version of critical infrastructure like RPM [...]" based on the recent changes to RPM was voiced[3] by Tom Lane. Upon a challenge from Seth Vidal some problems with the process of upgrading rpm to handle stronger hashes were listed[4] by Bill Nottingham. These included including "No solution for handling packages natively on F9" and Tom Lane expanded[5] on the point: "I'm personally still ticked off that I'm being forced to update my development workstation to F-10 immediately in order to continue doing useful work on rawhide packages. I don't have time for that right now. Since F-9 is still supported, isn't it a management failing to have allowed this to happen without a plan to make mock on F-9 work?" The general response seemed to be that developers need to use one of the virtual machine solutions in order to be able to build for rawhide. A substantial sub-thread on the rate of change in rawhide and whether or not developers should use it or stick to the current stable release with a virtualized instance of rawhide developed[6] following some thoughts from Adam Williamson. RahulSundaram asked[7] for more information on the use of LZMA compression as this is one of the new features of rpm-4.7. Panu replied[8] LZMA will not be used by default as it would make even the current Fedora 10 rpm unable to read packages produced with such compression. A FESCo decision made on 2009-03-06 confirmed[9] that rpm-4.7 would be the version shipping in Fedora 11. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02117.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02161.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02134.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02142.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02146.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02213.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02156.html 8. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02173.html 9. http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/fesco/FESCo-2009-03-06.html === Windows Cross-compiler Added to comps.xml === Following from a FESCo 2009-03-06 decision Richard W.M. Jones asked[1] to add a "Windows cross-compiler" group to comps.xml before the rapidly approaching 2009-03-10 string freeze. Kevin Kofler asked why Richard did not call it "MinGW cross compiler" and Richard responded[2] that he wanted to avoid trademarks and leave open the possibility to broaden support to other non-embedded platforms. He came up with either "Consumer cross-compilers (CCC) or Consumer cross-compiler collection (CCCC)." Kevin had some other interesting questions about the legality of possible OS X cross-compilers and the desirability of one group per OS. Richard pointed[3] to an earlier thread on the latter question. === Anaconda Default of Separate / and /home Partitions === A long-standing bugzilla entry was referenced[4] by Lex Hider as background for the idea that anaconda should support separate /home and / partitions in order to support clean installs during upgrades. Lex's detailed post included links to relevant previous discussion. Adam Williamson was very much in favor of the idea and in response to Jesse Keating suggested[5] some heuristics which might allow anaconda to determine the relative sizes of the / and /home partitions. Bruno Wolff III's / partition size (circa 40GB) proved[6] to be surprisingly large due to multiple languages installed. Michel Salim[7] and Callum Lerwick[8] both brought up the necessity to have a large / partition in order to be able to run preupgrade. Lex elaborated[9] on possible space requirements for such a scheme. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00365.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00384.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00397.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg01903.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg01960.html 6. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg01976.html 7. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02167.html 8. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02021.html 9. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-February/msg02356.html === Beta Freeze and String Freeze this Tuesday 2009-03-10 === Dennis Gilmore posted[1] a heads up on 2009-03-06 that "[...] anything that needs translations needs to be done by COB [Tuesday]. This is a blocking Freeze any packages you need included in the Beta release must be requested via release engineering [.]" A brief amount of confusion occurred[2] due to the misnaming of the day of the week. Till Maas also wondered exactly what Close Of Business meant exactly for an international project like Fedora. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00430.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-March/msg00425.html === Fedora 11 Default Mediaplayer Not Banshee. Mono to Blame ? === A summary of FESCo deliberations posted[1] by BillNottingham stirred DavidNielsen to object that he had not been alerted (as maintainer) that discussion of the Banshee media player was to occur. David also objected[2] that the onus had been placed on him to convince the maintainer of the competitor Rhythmbox package to allow the replacement. He also suggested that the use of the Mono language was a stumbling block due to RHEL eschewing Mono: "[...] RHEL does not ship Mono, if RHEL wants to ship Rhythmbox that is their decision but what Fedora ships should not be. What else are we going to be dictated from above.. who else should bother to make proposals for what they preceive to be improvements?" Jesse Keating responded[3] that his understanding was that the desire to avoid mono in Fedora is to avoid bloating the LiveCDs with dependencies. The IRC logs bore out[4] this interpretation with FESCo members explicitly stating that "[...] what its written in should have no bearing on what goes in[.]" It was also clear however that RHEL, as the largest downstream distributor of an OS directly derived from Fedora, would not be ignored. == Translation == This section covers the news surrounding the Fedora Translation (L10n) Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N Contributing Writer: Runa Bhattacharjee === FLP Infrastructure Team Meeting === The second meeting[1] of the FLP Infrastructure team was held on 2009-03-05. The important topics discussed included the enabling of login via FAS for the Transifex instance, Publican support (statistics), inclusion of the Transifex RPM files into the yum repositories etc. Meanwhile, the test instance of http://translate.fedoraproject.org with a new version of transifex is currently available on http://publictest14.fedoraproject.org for testing and feedback. The statistics can be viewed without login. For advanced operations, a log-in can be created on the server[2]. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00033.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00019.html === Statistics Page and Submission Outage === Due to a failed refresh process, the translation statistics were not correctly generated on translate.fedoraproject.org[1]. The error was fixed rapidly by the FLP Infrastructue Team[2]. Additionally, Xavier Conde Rueda reported[3] failure to submit authconfig and fedora-web module via the submit page. The error, caused in the main server, was fixed by the Fedora Infrastructure team[4]. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00006.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00010.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00050.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00056.html === Publican Documents Now on tfp.org === The two publican documents which were requested for translation by Ruediger Landmann can now be submitted via translate.fedoraproject.org[1]. Until last week, these files had to be sent back to Ruediger for submission. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00025.html === F11 String Freeze Reminder === FLSCo member NorikoMizumoto has sent out a reminder[1] of the upcoming String freeze[2] date to the Devel team. The string freeze for Fedora 11 is scheduled to be in place on the 10th of March 2009. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00009.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/StringFreezePolicy === Study about FLP === DimitrisGlezos has put together a study[1][2] about the progess of the Fedora Localization Project. The discussion includes various aspects of FLP including the community structure, communication, language coverage, FLP backend administration and engineering etc. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00051.html 2. http://dimitris.glezos.com/weblog/2009/03/08/flp-advancement-study === New Members in FLP === Jorge Gallegos[1], Ricardo Pinto[2], Teemu Vartiainen[3] and Alexey Vasyukov[4] joined the Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish and Russian translation teams respectively. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00026.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00030.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00036.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2009-March/msg00047.html == Artwork == In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei === Echo Weekly News === Martin Sourada announced[1] on @fedora-art a new edition of the Echo Weekly News [2] "This issue covers February 2009 and contains this topic: New Icons, Perspective" and a few days later he also advanced[3] a new design for the "computer" icon. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00012.html 2. http://fedorahosted.org/echo-icon-theme/wiki/MonthlyNews/Issue7 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00038.html === Preparing for the Beta Release === With the Beta release for Fedora 11 nearing, Paul Frields asked[1] about the wallpaper status "We are a little past that deadline if the wallpaper is to get into the Beta spin as was originally intended, but it *can* still happen. I suggest deciding on a candidate by tomorrow. If the design isn't perfect there is still time to tweak it as we move toward the Preview Release and the other collateral designs are made" and Máirín Duffy came[2] with a round of images[3], which gathered the consensus of the team with the reserve[4] on improving them further post-Beta. The images were also packaged[5] in a yummable format by Martin Sourada. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00023.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00026.html 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F11_Artwork#Beta_Mockups 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00028.html 5. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00030.html === Working on the Picture Book === After the project was initiated on @fedora-marketing a couple of months ago, the time came for implementation on @fedora-art and Máirín Duffy started the process[1] with an acclaimed[2] first mockup "Let the games begin! :) My concept for the theme of the book here is a guide on how to be Fedora. There would be 4 chapters, freedom, friends, features, first. The photos for each chapter will have the model's perspective on the chapter's four f, talking about how that f affects their life and affects their role in Fedora. Then below that, per picture, we could suggest to the readers how they can bring that into their own life with a suggestion. Kind of a call to action" which was followed by a round of improvements[3] from Nicu Buculei. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00014.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00015.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2009-March/msg00020.html == Security Advisories == In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce. https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce Contributing Writer: David Nalley === Fedora 10 Security Advisories === * mediawiki-1.14.0-45.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00033… * psi-0.12.1-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00071… * jhead-2.86-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00174… * wireshark-1.0.6-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00187… * curl-7.19.4-1.fc10 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00195… === Fedora 9 Security Advisories === * mediawiki-1.14.0-45.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00036… * psi-0.12.1-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00080… * dkim-milter-2.8.1-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00151… * jhead-2.86-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00177… * curl-7.19.4-1.fc9 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-March/msg00196… == Virtualization == In this section, we cover discussion on the @et-mgmnt-tools-list, @fedora-xen-list, @libvirt-list and @ovirt-devel-list of Fedora virtualization technologies. Contributing Writer: Dale Bewley === Enterprise Management Tools List === This section contains the discussion happening on the et-mgmt-tools list ==== Managing Guest OS Types ==== Cole Robinson created[1] a patch to provide a --list-os-options option to virt-install and virt-convert. Output from this option would be used to help users determine the appropriate argument for --os-type. The --os-type option is used to "Optimize the guest configuration for a type of operating system. This will attempt to pick the most suitable ACPI & APIC settings, optimally supported mouse drivers and generally accommodate other operating system quirks." This touched off a discussion[2] of how such information is managed. Daniel P. Berrange pointed out shortcomings in the current approach and perscribed the following fixes, and supplied an example XML file. * An XML schema for defining all the information wrt to guest OS distros that is relevant to virt management tools. * A C library for querying the information in the XML file(s). * Bindings of the C library into Python/Ruby etc as needed * Ability for local admins to extend / override the information either by editing the XML files directly, or a pretty GUI Cole later dropped[3] his patch and automated[4] the creation of the OS list in the virt-install man page instead. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00023.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00028.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00034.html 4. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00033.html ==== virt-manager Storage Removal ==== A patch[1] from Cole Robinson "adds a storage aware delete dialog to virt-manager. When deleting a VM, we are presented with a list of storage attached to it, with an option to remove individual disks as part of the delete process." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00042.html ==== virt-install Host Device Assignment Support ==== Cole Robinson added[1] "support for host device assignment to virtinst and virt-install. This adds a --host-device[2] command to "Attach a physical host device to the guest. HOSTDEV is a node device name as used by libvirt (as shown by 'virsh nodedev-list')." Daniel P. Berrange described[3] the management options for host devices. * "If 'managed=yes' then libvirt will automatically detach the device from the host driver." * "If 'managed=no' then libvirt expects that the caller has already ensured the device is detached from the host before *ALL* attempts to start the guest, now & in the future." This change supports the KVM PCI Device Assignment feature[4] in Fedora 11. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00003.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00006.html 3. http://www.redhat.com/archives/et-mgmt-tools/2009-March/msg00007.html 4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/KVM_PCI_Device_Assignment === Fedora Virtualization List === This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-virt list. ==== User Interface Makeover for virt-manager ==== Daniel P. Berrange pointed[1] out "there's a significant redesign of image:Echo-package-16px.pngvirt-manager in progress" and brought attention to Cole Robinson's 'New VM' wizard makeover[2]. Daniel added "Many more design improvements are targetted for the next few virt-manager releases, impacting nearly every area of the UI, so keep an eye out for more UI review postings during F12 timeframe too." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-March/msg00001.html 2. http://blog.wikichoon.com/2009/02/virt-manager-in-fedora-11-new-vm-wizard.h… ==== New Release virtinst 0.4.2 ==== Cole Robinson announced[1] a new virtinst release, version 0.400.2. image:Echo-package-16px.pngpython-virtinst is a module that helps build and install libvirt based virtual machines. It currently supports KVM, QEmu and Xen virtual machines. Package includes several command line utilities, including virt-install (build and install new VMs) and virt-clone (clone an existing virtual machine). New features: * New virt-clone option --original-xml, allows cloning a guest from an xml file, rather than require an existing, defined guest. * New virt-install option --import, allows creating a guest from an existing disk image, bypassing any OS install phase. * New virt-install option --host-device, for connecting a physical host device to the guest. * Allow specifying 'cache' value via virt-install's --disk options (Ben Kochie) * New virt-install option --nonetworks (John Levon) * Lots of backend cleanups and documentation improvements. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-March/msg00002.html === Fedora Xen List === This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-xen list. ==== dom0 Kernel Inches Closer === Pasi Kärkkäinen walked[1] the bleeding edge while testing Xen dom0 host support. Using Fedora 10 with Xen 3.3.1-9 from Rawhide and a custom built 2.6.29-rc7 pv_ops dom0 kernel the system boots, but virt-install and virt-manager fail with the error "Unsupported virtualization type 'xen'". It seems[2] that /sys/hypervisor/properties/capabilities is not present for some unknown reason. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00017.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-xen/2009-March/msg00023.html === Libvirt List === This section contains the discussion happening on the libvir-list. ==== New Release libvirt 0.6.1 ==== Daniel Veillard announced[1] a new image:Echo-package-16px.pnglibvirt release, version 0.6.1. Libvirt is a C toolkit to interact with the virtualization capabilities of recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). New features: * new APIs for Node device detach reattach and reset (Mark McLoughlin) * sVirt[2] mandatory access control support (James Morris and Dan Walsh) Improvements: * don't hardcode ssh port (Guido Gunther) * new test cases and testing infrastructure (Jim Meyering) * improve the SExpr parser (John Levon) * proper error reporting on xend shutdown command (John Levon) * proper handling of errors when saving QEmu domains state (Guido Gunther) * revamp of the internal error memory APIs (John Levon) * better virsh error reporting (John Levon) * more daemon options to allow running multiple daemons (Jim Meyering) * error handling when creating a QEmu domain (Guido Gunther) * fix timeouts in QEmu log reading (Guido Gunther) * migration with xend 3.3 fixes (John Levon) * virsh XML dump flags cleanup (Cole Robinson) * fix build with loadable drivers (Maximilian Wilhelm) * internal XML APIs to read long long and hexa values (Mark McLoughlin) * function to parse node device XML descriptions and associated test (Mark McLoughlin) * generate network bridge names if not provided (Cole Robinson) * recognize ejectable media in hostdev hal driver (Cole Robinson) * integration of sVirt (Daniel Berrange) There were also dozens of cleanups, documentation enhancements, portability and bug fixes. With about five weeks since the release of 0.6.0[3], Daniel added "So quite a bit of changes happened in one month of development, so it's getting clear we aren't really slowing down and keeping a relatively fast release cycle is needed. So expect 0.6.2 in a month or so." 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00144.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SVirt_Mandatory_Access_Control 3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue161#New_Release_libvirt_0.6.0 ==== sVirt Support Committed ==== Daniel P. Berrange applied[1] the sVirt[2] patches to enable selinux support in libvirt. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00092.html 2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SVirt_Mandatory_Access_Control ==== Secure Guest Migration Between Hosts ==== Chris Lalancette posted[1] a request for comments on secure migration with an initial focus on Qemu. The proposal included two options. One leveraged existing RPC while the second created a new well known port to handle the migration. Using RPC adds a layer of authenitcation which may possibly be avoided in the second option by simply opening a new port in a firewall. Sticking with existing RPC and enhancing[2] the authentication system for migration seemed to be the consensus. 1. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00094.html 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00148.html ==== Hynesim Project Interest in Libvirt ==== Florian Vichot of the Hynesim[1] project was interested[2] in replacing their wrappers around KVM, VirtualBox, and OpenVZ with libvirt, and so asked about support for a number of features including auxiliary TAP devices in the host to correspond with ethernet devices in the guest. 1. http://www.hynesim.org 2. http://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2009-March/msg00115.html -- Oisin Feeley http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OisinFeeley

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announce March 2009