Operational Meeting

Toby, Alastair, Graham

Craig to incorporate a couple of minor amendments.

Actions completed:

• Reboot to pick up SL5.3 -- overtaken by new kernel
• AFS and AMD-based RPM service -- merged into other AMD action, which has been renamed
• Talk to CSTR about BP servers -- done
• Mail re. autoreboot -- done

Actions added:

• ALL to ensure that machines are rebooted promptly to pick up the new kernel and AFS module.
• MPU to look at filesystem tuning and related fstab component enhancements.

Report from Computing Executive Group

1. Pandemic planning

   Craig reminded the meeting that he'll be on holiday shortly, so anyone hoping to speak to him about pandemic planning issues should do so soon.

Reports from units.

• Infrastructure.

  1. Switch firmware

     Two of the Forrest Hill switches will be upgraded and rebooted first thing tomorrow (Thursday 10th), prior to the session rollover (see RaT report).

  2. Bonding

     To clarify, in the Forum it's important to use an even/odd pair, with the even switch number one lower than the odd: sr00/sr01, sr02/sr03, sr04/sr05 and so on. If you don't do this you may not get the diversity you expect; in particular, sr01 and sr02 are both connected directly to core1, though they do have redundant paths to the other core switches.

  3. Forum server room UPSes

     Stephen reminded the meeting that the nut component wouldn't be started automatically just by adding the header, but would have to be started by hand or by rebooting.

• Managed Platform.

  1. Kernel update

     It's really important that the new kernel and AFS module be brought into service as soon as possible. Reboots can begin to happen from Friday. ALL units to ensure that this is done.

• Research and Teaching.

• Services.

• User Support.

Topics for discussion

Fscking of file systems on reboot -- after some discussion there was agreement as follows:

• With ext3 filesystems it wasn't really necessary to force a full fsck every 180 days for data partitions, though checking every few mounts was still thought to be useful.
• It's still useful and relatively quick to fsck the root and other system partitions more frequently.
• MPU will look at enhancing the fstab component to allow it to control fscking, possibly involving tunefs.

AOCB

Following the assignment of people to areas as part of the pandemic planning, remember to update auto-mail lists accordingly.

The next Operational meeting will be on Wednesday 23rd September in IF-4.31, chaired by Alison Downie.