Weekly Changes – 16/01/2023
This is a particularly big week for changes, the most noticeable change is to how we generate the lists of package updates. Otherwise, most of them are again related to the ongoing effort to complete our new Ubuntu installer project or our work to improve support for the Ubuntu server environment. Here are all the notable changes…
Updates package lists
The updates package lists for SL7 and Ubuntu are now generated in a different way which massively reduces their size. They will now only include updates for the most recent versions of packages, older updates are removed once they are not required. As well as reducing the file size this should reduce the load on the LCFG servers since they do not have to apply large numbers of irrelevant updates to each profile.
Installer
The LCFG lvm component is now only included for SL7, the new installer provides support for managing LVM volumes via the fstab component.
The new installer for Ubuntu now includes the repository key for the School of Geosciences. Get in touch if you would also like your site key to be included.
On Ubuntu, the installbase profiles now default to the hardware enablement (HWE) kernels so that newer hardware is fully supported.
PXE service
The ed/options/pxe_root_server.h now includes TFTP service mappings to provide compatibility for various legacy mode PXE files (anything that matches *.0, *.c32 and the pxeclient.cfg files) which are now stored in the bios sub-directory on Ubuntu-based servers. This makes it possible to update your PXE server to Ubuntu even if you cannot change the DHCP configuration for your clients.
DHCP clients
Sites using the lcfg/defaults/dhclient.h header to configure their DHCP server via a spanning map now have sensible defaults for the boot filename. In Informatics we have experienced problems with using syslinux to PXE boot in UEFI mode for Ubuntu clients so this specifies the grub/grubnetx64.efi.signed bootloader instead in that situation.
kdcregister
The lcfg/options/kdcregister.h header now supports a KDCR_NO_INTERACTION macro. This puts the kdcregister install command into a non-interactive mode where it uses a previously stashed admin credentials cache rather than prompting the user. This allows a site to enable the lcfg.kauth=1 installer kernel command-line option which means the administrator is prompted for their admin principle at the very beginning of the install process.
iptables
The LCFG iptables component has been updated to 1.2.105 on SL7. That version has been actively used in Informatics for some time so we do not expect problems but it does contain some significant changes from the previous 1.2.55 that was specified in the header. All sites using this component on SL7 should carefully check the firewall rules generated by the new version.
DNS
The LCFG dns component, used to manage the bind name server, has gained better support for configuring the zone transfer source. There are new resources – axfrNet_$ and axfrSource_$. You can either explicitly specify the source address or otherwise specify a VLAN and the component will attempt to select the correct address for your server.
rsyslog
For consistency, the LCFG rsyslog component has been updated to 0.3.10 on all platforms. There are no major changes for the SL7 platform, nearly all changes to the package are related to adding support for Ubuntu.
lightdm
The schema for the LCFG lightdm component has been updated to add a new minimum_vt resource which can be used specify the virtual terminal on which to run the lightdm login manager. The default is 7.
kernel
The DICE Ubuntu systems following the develop release are once more following the INF_TEST series. That provides the latest hardware enablement kernel versions.
PostgreSQL
There are updates for the various supported versions of PostgreSQL from the PGDG repository – 15.1, 14.6, 13.9, 12.13. See the announcement for full details. Note that some versions require an updated version of the libpq5 package.
ZFS
There is a new ed-level package list – ed/ed_ubu2004_zfs.pkgs – that provides support for the ZFS filesystem. This includes a pre-built kernel module package that will match with the required kernel version, thus dkms is not required. For Focal this only supports a newer version – 2.1.4 – and not the standard version.
Multipath
There is now a LCFG_OPTIONS_MULTIPATH package option which can be used to include all the necessary packages for multipath support on Ubuntu.
The lcfg/options/multipath.h header now configures all the multipath Systemd services for Ubuntu, it was previously missing multipathd.socket and a multipath-tools.service compatibility alias.
The LCFG multipath component does not currently provide support for Ubuntu, it will only be added when required.
The EL7 version support has been simplified since we are now only supporting a single minor release.
LCFG Build Tools
The template for the debian/control file which is used when generating new packages has been updated to add the new lcfg-build-deps package to the Build-Depends list. The minimum debhelper and policy versions have also been bumped up to those in Ubuntu Focal.
Debian Support
All support for older Debian releases – 9 (squeeze) and 10 (buster) – has been removed. Minimal support for 11 (bullseye) has been added which should allow for profiles to compile.
Changes to headers and package lists
Members of the Informatics Computing team can browse all the changes to the headers and package lists.
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