IT Meeting @ 2011-02-22 20:05:00
Attending: Edward McCutcheon (Outgoing IT Officer, Incoming President), Matthew Wilkinson (Incoming IT Officer), Tim Davidson, Andrew Maddison, Adam Hall, Christopher Couzens, Richard Townsend, Hao Dong, Ross Woodruff, Emma Ruhkala, James Kettle (non-member, attending by invitation of IT Officer)
Apologies: None
Meeting commenced 20:05.
Film Tracking
Earlier in the year, Ed created a tracking system for films to replace the current system of emailing the qualified projectionist’s mailing list with the status of individual films. Ed is now unable to continue developing it due to his commitments as President, and volunteers were called for to pick the project up. Richard volunteered to develop it going forward, and Ed is to walk him through how it currently works. Feature suggestions were for emails to be sent out to relevant people when films were updated, and that the system may be able to accept emails to update the status.
Action: Ed to show Richard how the current system works
Action: Richard to continue development of the system
Mailing lists
Over the weekend, the mailing lists went down several times, and it was ascertained that mailman was failing because it ran out of disk quota. Tim has increased the quota, and so the mailing lists should remain operative for the foreseeable future. Tim stated that the reason the server ran out of quota was because archives were being kept of all mail being sent to official aliases, as well as mailing lists (that is, president@filmsoc, vice-president@filmsoc etc). A short discussion was held about purging these archives, however certain important pieces of information (such as prior agreements with the university) may still reside in these archives, so the discussion will be taken to the executive committee.
Decision (deferred): Deferred to the executive committee on whether to expunge alias archives
Handover
Ed gives a short (ish…) speech about the previous year, and thanks everybody involved for their contribution.
Matt doesn’t really have much to say, mostly because the meeting has already been going on for a while and it’s silly to re-introduce himself by now.
New Website
A lengthy tutorial/discussion about the architecture of the new website was had, the details of which are somewhat dry. A meeting is to be held at another time to further discuss these types of issues, as they are somewhat outside the scope of regular IT Meetings.
Matt acknowledged the work of members who worked on templates in the last few weeks, and asked them to continue on and make edit or browse templates for the ones they had already been assigned. Ross hadn’t been assigned any templates yet, having not been able to attend the last meeting; Matt is to assign him some via email.
Matt proposed that a coding session of several days in length be run in order that any required training could be done, and that work on the website could be advanced quickly while everyone was working together. The break between term 2 and 3 was proposed, but most of the relevant team members would be forced to go home due to university accommodation being unavailable. 29th April – 1st May was proposed as this coincides with two bank holidays, creating a four day weekend on which to do this. Matt asked all relevant members (and any others that wished to come) to attend if they could.
Action: Relevant team members to continue development on their assigned templates
Action: Matt to assign Ross templates
Action: Relevant team members to attend a 4 day coding session from 29th April
Servers
Tim reports that Debian (the Linux operating system that the society uses on it servers) has released a new version recently, and he plans to update the servers to this version. There were concerns of compatibility and downtime, so Tim will copy the current virtual servers and perform the updates on the copies, and rollback if anything goes wrong. Tim will inform everyone of the time that he intends to perform these updates via email, and Matt will inform Exec about any potential problems that may arise during this time.
Tim noted that he will also be updating Bazaar (the versioning software we use for the website) and that this may require members to update their working copies on their own machines.
Tim proposed that PHP (the scripting language both the old and new website run on) on the old website server be upgraded to PHP 5.3 (the latest version), as PHP 5.2 has now reached end of life. However, it was agreed, after a quick test by Ed, that the time required to upgrade the old website to even be able to run semi-stably under PHP 5.3 would be longer than the projected time for the new website (which is running PHP 5.3) to be completed. It was felt that leaving the old website on PHP 5.2 until the new website is finished was an acceptable compromise, and did not pose a security problem.
Ed asked Tim to check that backups were being made correctly. Tim is quite sure that they are functioning correctly, but will check for peace of mind.
Tim will email the IT mailing list if any other issues arise.
Action: Tim to update the servers to the latest version of Debian, informing the team before he does so
Action: Matt to inform the Exec of any potential problems this might pose at the time
Decision (by consensus): The old website to be left on PHP 5.2, and replaced with the new website when ready.
Action: Tim to check that backups are functioning correctly.
Action: Tim to email the IT team if any other issues arise.
Firewall replacements
It is noted that the current servers we use as firewalls (Sony and Barco) are becoming quite aged, and Sony in particular is unacceptably unstable; it takes an inordinate amount of time to restore functionality in the case of a shutdown. It has been proposed that they be replaced with parts taken from machines not currently in use under the floor of the proj box, and this was previously agreed upon. Two cases for these to be put in so they can be mounted on the rack have been proposed, one larger but cheaper, one smaller but more expensive. Ed believes that the expense of the smaller case is unjustifiable. A discussion was held as to whether there is space in the rack for the larger cases, and it was concluded that, with some shuffling, the larger cases could be accommodated. A vote was taken on whether to purchase the larger cases (for), or a different case (against). For. Subject to the Exec approving the expenditure, Andy is to order the cases.
Decision (by vote): Purchase the large cases to build replacement servers in. For: 6, Against: 0, Abstaining: 5
Action: Andy to order the cases (subject to Exec approval)
Exec Accounts
The Exec (particularly the incoming vice-president) have requested that they be given individual user accounts on the societies IT systems, so that they can conduct role-based business on them. It was agreed that the easiest method at present was to create an account for each exec member, named after their ITS usercode, and then create a new “Exec” group, which is assigned its own own drive. Each officer can then maintain his or her own folder on the Exec drive to do business in. This then also means that these can be easily given to the new exec upon handover. Ed tried to think of scenarios in which it would be a problem for other exec members to access each other's Exec areas, and could only come up with issues for others accessing the President's space. Tim is to investigate folder-based permissions, or if this is not feasible, create a further drive purely for the president.
Action: Tim to create an “Exec” drive and group, and create a new user account for each member of the Exec (if they don’t already have one) and add them to it
Action: Tim to investigate folder-based permissions to address concerns over private matters
Inventory
It has recently come to light that the Students Union does not have an up to date inventory for the society, the last one they claim to have is from 2006. A partial inventory from last year is available, but is incomplete in light of all the purchases by IT in the last year. The IT Team therefore needs to contribute an updated inventory. It is proposed that this be compiled during the crew social on Monday 28th, which is to be held in L3, as this is one of the few times when most members are actually available and a major event is not being held. Matt encouraged all members to attend both to conduct the inventory and to socialise more with the rest of the society (one of his actual election promises, not one of the imaginary ones that everyone seems to think he made…).
Action: Inventory to be compiled on Monday 28th during the crew social, all members to attend if they are available
Any Other Business
Emma wishes to announce that she is leaving the IT Team. Ed has agreed to put her in contact with the Marketing Officer when they are elected.
Meeting adjourned 21:43.