| 1 | = Ad Hoc Backup Group Meeting Notes = |
| 2 | |
| 3 | May 13, 2011 |
| 4 | |
| 5 | Present: jamie, ana, daniel s. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Next phone meeting: Friday, May 27, 11:30 am America/New_York time |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Jamie reported on progress - all servers now have their backup configurations set by puppet. Also, all servers now report backup info via: http://SERVER.mayfirst.org:999/backup.txt, e.g. http://viewsic.mayfirst.org:999/backup.txt. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | However - he reported two problems: |
| 12 | |
| 13 | * The information is not very human friendly |
| 14 | * The information is not cryptographically verified (i.e. it's not provided over https) |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Jamie proposed one possible alternative: to send people to our Nagios server web site. Nagios is our system monitoring software, it is the software that alerts us when a server goes down. When nagios starts monitorig the backup info, it can provide members with a full picture of their server, including the backup status. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | The problem, though, is that the nagios web interface is not particularly user friendly either. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Daniel suggested that adding key/legends and instructions would improve the port 999 solution (http://viewsic.mayfirst.org:999/backup.txt). |
| 21 | |
| 22 | Ana and Daniel both warned that nagios might be reporting errors that aren't serious - giving members access to this might cause them to post un-necesary tickets. Jamie responded that if nagios is reporting non-serious errors (which it currently ''does'' do), then it should be fixed to only report serious errors. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | We decided that jamie will provide the ad hoc group access to nagios (currently password protected) and we would decide whether it was friendly enough. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Daniel and ana have made a lot of progress on https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/member-backup. Thanks! |
| 27 | |
| 28 | Ana agreed to fill in the Backup and Migrate section. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | Daniel reported that he has successfully setup an encrypted backup to Amazon S3. He will post a ticket requesting that the software used by installed on all MFPL mosh servers. He will also add to the member-backup wiki directions for how to do this. |
| 31 | |
| 32 | Ana agreed to write a Lowdown article about the changes we've made to the backup. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | Jamie is working on: |
| 35 | |
| 36 | * Having nagios monitor the backup status |
| 37 | * Making database dumps accessible to members |