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Call for contribution to the Guix infrastructure
From: |
Ludovic Courtès |
Subject: |
Call for contribution to the Guix infrastructure |
Date: |
Fri, 24 May 2024 15:51:39 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) |
Since its inception, the Guix project has always valued its autonomy,
and that reflects in its infrastructure: our servers run Guix System and
exclusively free software, none of them is hosted by one of these
transnational companies, and they’re administered by volunteers.
Of course this comes at a cost and this is why we’re sending this call
for contributions. Our hope is to make infrastructure-related activity
more legible so that maybe you can picture yourself helping in one of
these areas.
• Coding
We run many Guix-specific services; this is all lovely Scheme code
but it tends to receive less attention than Guix itself:
Build Farm Front-End: https://git.cbaines.net/guix/bffe
Cuirass: https://guix.gnu.org/cuirass/
Goggles (IRC logger):
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/hydra/goggles.scm
Guix Build Coordinator:
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/build-coordinator.git/
Guix Data Service: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix/data-service.git/
Guix Packages Website:
https://codeberg.org/luis-felipe/guix-packages-website.git
mumi: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/mumi.git/
nar-herder: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/nar-herder.git/
QA Frontpage: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix/qa-frontpage.git
There is no time constraint on this coding activity: any improvement
is welcome, whenever it comes. Most of these code bases are
relatively small, which should make it easier to get started.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with Guile, HTTP, and databases.
If you wish to get started, check out the README of the project of
your choice and get in touch with guix-devel and the primary
developer(s) of the tool as per ‘git shortlog -s | sort -k1 -n’.
• System administration
Guix System configuration for all our systems is held in this
repository:
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/hydra/
The two front-ends are berlin.scm (the machine behind
ci.guix.gnu.org) and bayfront.scm (the machine behind
bordeaux.guix.gnu.org, guix.gnu.org, hpc.guix.info, qa.guix.gnu.org,
and more). Both connect to a number of build machines and helpers.
Without even having SSH access to the machine, you can help by
posting patches to improve the configuration (you can test it with
‘guix system vm’). Here are ways you can help:
- Improve infra monitoring: set up a dashboard to monitor all the
infrastructure, and an out-of-band channel to communicate about
downtime.
- Implement web site redundancy: guix.gnu.org should be backed by
several machines on different sites. Get in touch with us
and/or send a patch!
- Implement substitute redundancy: likewise, bordeaux.guix.gnu.org
and ci.guix.gnu.org should be backed by several head nodes.
- Improve backup: there’s currently ad-hoc backup of selected
pieces over rsync between the two head nodes; we can improve on
that, for example with a dedicated backup site and proper
testing of recoverability.
- Support mirroring: We’d like to make it easy for others to
mirror substitutes from ci.guix and bordeaux.guix, perhaps by
offering public rsync access.
- Optimize our web services: Monitor the performance of our
services and tweak nginx config or whatever it takes to improve
it.
There is no time constraint on this activity: any improvement is
welcome, whenever you can work on it.
Prerequisite: Familiarity with Guix System administration and
ideally with the infrastructure handbook:
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/infra-handbook.org>.
• Day-to-day system administration
We’re also looking for people who’d be willing to have SSH access to
some of the infrastructure to help with day-to-day maintenance:
restarting a build, restarting the occasional service that has gone
wild (that can happen :-)), reconfiguring/upgrading a machine,
rebooting, etc.
This day-to-day activity requires you to be available some of the
time (during office hours or not, during the week-end or not),
whenever is convenient for you, so you can react to issues reported
on IRC, on the mailing list, or elsewhere, and synchronize with
other sysadmins.
Prerequisite: Being a “known” member of the community, familiarity
with Guix System administration, with some of the services/web sites
being run, and with the infrastructure handbook:
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/maintenance.git/tree/doc/infra-handbook.org>.
• On-site intervention
The first front-end is currently generously hosted by the Max
Delbrück Center (MDC), a research institute in Berlin, Germany.
Only authorized personnel can physically access it.
The second one, bordeaux.guix.gnu.org, is hosted in Bordeaux,
France, in a professional data center shared with non-profit ISP
Aquilenet. If you live in the region of Bordeaux and would like to
help out when we need to go on-site, please make yourself known by
emailing guix-sysadmin@gnu.org.
On-site interventions are rare, but they’re usually in response to
an emergency.
• Hosting
We’re looking for people who can host machines and help out whenever
physical access is needed. More specifically:
- We need hosting of “small” machines such as single-board
computers (AArch64, RISC-V) for use as build machines.
- We need hosting for front-ends and x86_64 build machines in a
data center where they can be racked and where, ideally, several
local Guix sysadmins can physically access them.
The machines should be accessible over Wireguard VPN most of the
time, so longer power or network interruptions should be the
exception.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with installing and remotely
administering Guix System.
• Administrative tasks
The infra remains up and running thanks to crucial administrative
tasks, which includes:
- Selecting and purchasing hardware, for example build machines.
- Renewing domain names.
- Securing funding, in particular via the Guix Foundation:
<https://foundation.guix.info>.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with hardware, and/or DNS registrars,
and/or sponsorship, and/or crowdfunding.
The more we are, the less any single one of us has to do!
Ludo’, on behalf of the infrastructure team.
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- Call for contribution to the Guix infrastructure,
Ludovic Courtès <=