RM Q&A for Sysadmins
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RM Q&A for Sysadmins
- Q: Do you use Gitolite repos at git.tails.net?
- Q: How are APT repos related to Git repos?
- Q: What are APT overlays?
- Q: What are the base APT repos of Tails?
- Q: What "freeze snapshot" does?
- Q: How to import tor browser?
- Q: What kind of APT snapshots we have?
- Q: Who actually builds images?
- Q: How's the website related to all this?
- Q: How are images distributed?
- Q: Which IUKs do we maintain at a certain point in time?
- Q: Where are torrent files generated?
- Q: Does Schleuder play a role somewhere?
- Q: When should Sysadmins be present to support the release process?
- Q: How do we know who'll be RM for a specific release?
This is the output of a session between Zen-Fu and Anonym where they quickly went through the Release Process documentation (https://tails.net/contribute/release_process/) and tried to pin point which parts of the Infra are used during the release process.
Q: Do you use Gitolite repos at git.tails.net?
A: Not anymore!
Q: How are APT repos related to Git repos?
A: Each branch and tag of tails.git generates a correspondent APT repo (even feature-branches).
Q: What are APT overlays?
A: They are APT repos made from feature branches. If there are files in config/APT_overlays.d named according to branches, those APT repos are included when Tails is built. Then, right before a release, we merge these feature branch APT suites into the "base" APT suite used for the release (stable or testing) by bin/merge-APT-overlays.
Example: applying patches from Tor --> create a branch feature/new-tor -->
Push repo --> APT repo is created --> touch file in config/APT_overlays.d -->
gets merged. If instead we merged into stable we wouldn't be able to revert.
It's like a soft merge.
Q: What are the base APT repos of Tails?
A: Stable (base, for releases), testing (when we freeze devel), development.
Q: What "freeze snapshot" does?
A: It's local, sets URLs from where to fetch.
Q: How to import tor browser?
A: There's a git-annex repo for it, which pushes to tor browser archive.
Q: What kind of APT snapshots we have?
A: Time-based snapshots include everything on a repo on a certain moment (based on timestamps); and tagged snapshots (related to Git tags) contain exactly the packages included in a release.
Q: Who actually builds images?
A: Jenkins, the RM, and trusted reproducers.
Q: How's the website related to all this?
A: It has to announce new releases.
Q: How are images distributed?
A: From jenkins, they go to rsync server which will seed mirrors.
Q: Which IUKs do we maintain at a certain point in time?
A: Only IUKs from all past versions (under the same major release) to the latest version. When there's a new Debian, older IUKs are deleted.
Q: Where are torrent files generated?
A: RM's system.
Q: Does Schleuder play a role somewhere?
A: Yes, it's used to send e-mail to manual testers.
Q: When should Sysadmins be present to support the release process?
A: Generally, the most intensive day is the day before the release, but RMs might do some work the days before. Check frequently with them to see if this eventually changes.