Meet at Open Source Experience Paris

After a long time staying quiet, I’ll be again talking at an Open Source Event ! The Open Source Experience Paris is an old new event (having been called POSS, cancelled last year, or Solution Linux even before) during which I’ll talk about two topics in french this time:

• 09 november 2021 11:20 – 11:40 – Room 241 – API != REST – procmail à la rescousse, or how an modern API can also be done using old tools such as the SMTP protocol and procmail, and also more “standard” REST APIs as well, all combined to help build a Workshop on Demand service. And I’m happy to present this topic with the help of my HPE colleague Frédéric Passeron.
• 09 november 2021 14:20 – 14:40 – Room 242A – Vous souhaitez passer votre projet en open source ? or how putting your code developed with love during 2 years on github.com is probably the wrong thing to do to get all the benefits of Open Sourcing.

I’ll be around the rest of the event, probably not too far from the Mageia booth as they have been kind enough to make some advertisement for my presentations !

It’ll be great to be able to see some of you as it’s a pretty long time since we were able to do so and discuss about the latest news in our communities. So see you there !

New Mageia Board

After releasing its 8th version, the community members part of the french 1901 law association had a meeting tonight to reinvigorate the work done by the association in support of the distribution, and elected a new board to support that goal.

I’m proud to have gathered the trust of my fellow association members and been elected as a board member ! We also have a brand new chairman (neoclust, more than 2000 packages maintained !), a new secretary (auroud85, mister QA) and a new treasurer (maat, French users community).

With that new team in place and acting, I’m sure you’ll hear more and more about our distribution through various channels !

Mageia 8 is out

As announced on the project site, Mageia 8 is now out ! It’s great to see the community succeeding in another joint work to publish that one.

Now, I have to update my servers, my laptops, my workstations in order to benefit from it. Won’t happen tomorrow however, as each time I need to check for major release updates and potential migration aspects before doing so. Using it for all what I do from apache, freedb, squid, shorewall to gnucash, tellico, digikam, and of course the usual firefox, thunderbird/mutt, libreoffice, that’s quite some software to test. Not counting the one I need to use on top of it such as teams, hpemyroom, zoom, openconnect with a Yubikey for my work.

Will start to look at shorewall first and fix my ansible playbooks to deploy the conf once the machine has been updated. Some fun ahead 😉

Congrats to all of you who contributed to that release (myself included in fact !!)

Using zoom on Mageia 7

As lots of people confined in these difficult times, I’m working remotely. And here at home, as when I’m at work, I’m using a Linux machine to perform all my tasks. What else ?!!

Among the interactive tools I can use to interact wih my colleagues, there is Skype Enterprise (no luck on LInux, so using just a phone call, painful), HPE My Room (multi-platform with many features and usable on Mageia 7), Microsoft Teams (which is working nicely on Mageia 7 without issue, and you even have source code access under GPLv3 for an unofficial client), and the fully FLOSS Jitsi.

But some of my recent meeting requests were also using zoom. And while there is indeed a Linux client, due to libraries versions incompatibilities, it refuses to install on Linux, and even when forced to, doesn’t launch.

So I had to create a small Fedora:32 container, and with some suitable parameters, zoom is now working in it. To ease it, I have create a small script to launch the stuff:

#!/bin/bash
# Licensed under the GPLv3 🙂
mkdir -p /tmp/docker-fedora
export LUID=`id -u`
cd /tmp/docker-fedora
if [ ! -f zoom_x86_64.rpm ]; then
    wget https://zoom.us/client/latest/zoom_x86_64.rpm
fi
RD="/home"
WD="$RD/$USER/prj/fedora/"

cat > Dockerfile << EOF
FROM fedora:32
MAINTAINER bcornec@mageia.org
RUN dnf makecache
RUN dnf -y update || true
COPY zoom_x86_64.rpm /
RUN dnf install -y /zoom_x86_64.rpm
RUN dnf install -y pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils libglvnd-gles
RUN useradd $USER -u $LUID  -N -M -d $RD/$USER
RUN usermod -a -G audio $USER
RUN echo "$USER ALL=NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/dnf" >> /etc/sudoers
WORKDIR $WD
USER $USER
CMD zoom
EOF
stat=0
build=0
docker inspect pb:zoombuild 2>&1 > /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    if [ "$BASH_ARGV" = "-f" ]; then
        docker rmi pb:zoombuild
         build=1
    fi
else
     build=1
fi
if [ $build -eq 1 ]; then
    docker build --file=Dockerfile -t pb:zoombuild .
    stat=$?
fi
if [ $stat -eq 0 ]; then
    # Priviledge needed for zoom command in ctn
    docker run --device /dev/snd --device /dev/usb --rm -v $RD/$USER:$RD/$USER --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix -v /run/user/$LUID/pulse/native:/run/pulse/native -e PULSE_SERVER=/run/pulse/native -e PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH -ti pb:zoombuild
fi

Just run that script and you can join a zoom conf call, benefiting from sound at least (I have no webcam to test the video at the moment).

So now, dear mageians no excuse to stay confined without contacts with your colleagues 😉

Venez fêter les 6 ans de Docker

Mike Bright continue de promouvoir inlassablement les technologies cloud native sur Grenoble et vous propose de venir souffler les 6 bougies de Docker:

https://events.docker.com/events/details/docker-grenoble-presents-docker-birthday-6-how-do-you-docker

J’y parlerai et surtout montrerai mon utilisation de Docker Engine pour packager des logiciels pour Mageia (dont Docker lui-même !), tant la version stable que celle de développement, sans perturber ma machine hôte.

Venez nombreux !

Meet at Fosdem 2019 !

It’s that period of the year again where we start preparing for Fosdem ! Even if preparing for FLOSSCon at the same time !! And this year, this will be my first Open Source Event since my illness last year. I tried to attend the Paris Open Source Summit 2018, but I made my travel request too late to be accepted internally, so I missed it (easy excuse to refuse, but my fault indeed). This time I made it early enough, but didn’t get support. I must confess this is disappointing, and it has been a long time since I missed an event due to that. But I’ll go anyway, paying myself the travel and hotel in Brussels, and of course, as a consequence, there will be no HPE logo on my slides.

Too bad as I’ll be speaking about Redfish, the new standard for a Software Defined Infrastructure, which is a topic important for HPE and our SDI approach. I’ll then pass more time covering python-redfish on which I’ve been able to restart the work recently.

I’m afraid it’s a tendency in large corporations, not dedicated to FLOSS as it also happened at Intel for another speaker. The risk that corporations take is that their voice is less heard in our communities and also that they’re much less trusted, and thus their speakers not chosen in the future, especially for such community oriented events.

Anyway, I’ll be there, and will meet also the Mageia community gathering over there and enjoy the many conferences of course.

Creating a Mageia armv7hl docker image for Raspberry 3

Santa Claus has brought a shiny new Raspberry 3B+ to my son for Christmas ! While it came with raspian by default, I didn’t want to change it to Mageia directly even if it’s now available. We wanted to use it as a prod environment for his docker based setup on his laptop. Which is using Mageia 6 and also Mageia containers. So that’s where the fun begins because there is no mageia docker image for armv7hl available and usable on Raspberry. Well, now at least I have one, locally and can document here the way to do it, if you want to reproduce, or you can use mine as well, thanks to the docker hub !

So here are the steps of what I did to obtain mine:

1. Download the arm reference image for raspberry and uncompress it
2. Mount it as a loopback mount to access its content
3. Use the content and QEMU magic to run armv7hl binaries on your x86_64 machine and prepare your environment
4. Build a chroot on this point containing the minimal set of packages for a Mageia distribution
5. Create the Docker image out of that file and enjoy using it !

Which means wrt commands:
$ #1

$ cd $HOME/tmp

$ wget http://librepc.homelinux.org/dl/raspi/181217_mga7arm_rpi.img.xz

$ xz -d 181217_mga7arm_rpi.img.xz

$ #2

$ sudo kpartx -a 181217_mga7arm_rpi.img

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt

$ sudo mount /dev/mapper/loop1p2 /mnt

$ #3

$ sudo urpmi qemu-user-static qemu-system-arm

$ sudo systemctl start systemd-binfmt

$ sudo chroot /mnt

# arch     # isn't it magic !!

# urpmi.update -a

$ #4

# cd /home/pi

# export TARGETDIR=../tmp

# mkdir -p $TARGETDIR

# export MGAARCH=armv7hl

# export MGAVER=6

# /usr/sbin/urpmi.addmedia --distrib --urpmi-root "$TARGETDIR" ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/mageia.org/distrib/$MGAVER/$MGAARCH

# LANG=C LANGUAGE=C /usr/sbin/urpmi --auto --no-recommends --download-all --allow-force --force --force-key --urpmi-root "$TARGETDIR" basesystem urpmi

# export TMPDM=/tmp

# echo 'NETWORKING=yes' > $TMPDM/network

# install -m 0644 $TMPDM/network "$TARGETDIR"/etc/sysconfig/network

# rm -f $TMPDM/network

# rm -rf "$TARGETDIR/dev" "$TARGETDIR/proc"

# install -m 0755 -d "$TARGETDIR/dev" "$TARGETDIR/proc"

# cat > $TMPDM/resolv.conf << EOF
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4
EOF

# install -m 0644 $TMPDM/resolv.conf "$TARGETDIR/etc/resolv.conf"

# rm -f $TMPDM/resolv.conf

# export DATE=2019-01-05

# cat > Dockerfile << EOF
FROM scratch
MAINTAINER bcornec@mageia.org
WORKDIR /
ADD mageia-$MGAVER-$MGAARCH-$DATE.tar.xz /
LABEL name="Mageia $MGAVER Base Image Arch: $MGAARCH" \
vendor="Mageia" \
license="GPLv2" \
build-date="$DATE"
CMD /bin/bash
EOF

# tar -C $TARGETDIR -cJf mageia-$MGAVER-$MGAARCH-$DATE.tar.xz .

# chmod 644 Dockerfile mageia-$MGAVER-$MGAARCH-$DATE.tar.xz

$ #5

$ ssh pi@raspberry mkdir docker

$ scp /mnt/home/pi/Dockerfile /mnt/home/pi/mageia-6-armv7hl-*.tar.xz pi@raspberry:docker

$ ssh pi@raspberry

pi$ sudo urpmi docker

pi$ cd docker

pi$ docker build -t mageiaofficial:6-armv7hl .

pi$ docker images
REPOSITORY    TAG            IMAGE ID             CREATED        SIZE
mageiaofficial    6-armv7hl 9b5880971b45    9 seconds ago 386 MB

pi$ docker run -ti mageiaofficial:6-armv7hl /bin/bash
[root@33a7bb3763b5 /]# urpmi tcsh

ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/mageia.org/distrib/6/armv7hl/media/core/release/tcsh-6.19.00-5.mga6.armv7hl.rpm
installing tcsh-6.19.00-5.mga6.armv7hl.rpm from /var/cache/urpmi/rpms
Preparing... #############################################
1/1: tcsh #############################################
[root@33a7bb3763b5 /]# exit

Voilà !!

 

So now on your raspberry, it’s for you as simple as:

docker pull bcornec/mageia:6-armv7hl

Will soon provide a cauldron one as well 🙂

Meet at the RMLL 2017

This year the RMLL are coming back, from the 1st to the 7th of July and in my region, in St Etienne ! And this year, I am not only a speaker, but also a co-track leader for the Server track.

With my talks, You’ll be able to learn about the latest news for MondoRescue, project-builder.org, Docker, Redfish and python-redfish, Mageia and much more from my co-speakers (Ethereum, CMS, Cloud Native app, Unikernels, …) and even more from Keynote speakers as well.

Lodging is now available, so book quickly and let meet us there !

Meet during LinuxCon EMEA

After having talked on project-builder.org during the latest LinuxCon NA in Toronto, it’s now time to prepare for LinuxCon EMEA in Berlin.

I’l again talk about packaging, this time “Packaging for Linux Distributions with Docker“. And I’ll also replay the now popular (!) “101 Docker training” I’ve also delivered in Toronto, this time trying to deliver it before the one Jérome Petazzoni from Docker is doing on Docker orchestration, in order to allow for a complete overview of the Docker ecosystem.

Of course I’ll enjoy attending many sessions on various topics, and will see if in EMEA as well Docker Orchestration is the new Eldorado this year (In Toronto many talks and booth were dedicated to that theme). At least my colleague Mike Bright will cover it well !

See you around !

Fosdem is here again !

In addition to next week event participation for HPE in Cannes, I’ll be at Fosdem the coming week-end in Brussels. And I’m so happy to be able to be there again, as it has been since 2012 that i’ve not participated.

This time, it’s not MondoRescue or Project-Builder.org related. But the presentation that was selected is part of the Distributions dev room. The title is “Building Linux distribution packages with Docker”. I’ve been using Docker to help in building packages since a long time now, and Project-Builder.org latest version is now supporting it pretty well to help me package my upstream projects. But I want to cover a different aspect.

Docker has brought an ease of use without comparison with VMs typically to build native upstream distribution packages. Where before it was needed to
launch a complete environment, copy the sources into it, invoke the build tools to create the packages and then copy them back to the host, Docker has made all these steps much easier and straight forward, allowing for more rapid package production and automation.

This presentation will show a detailed use case for building packages for both Mageia and Fedora with their respective bm or koji tools encapsulated in Docker containers. It should help any upstream packager adopt a similar approach to make his packaging task a breathe.

Will be there Saturday the 30th of January (my 20′ talk is at 11:30 in K.4.201) and I’ll stay till Sunday early afternoon. Feel free again to catch me and discuss. When not in my talk, I’ll be in other sessions and also around the Mageia Booth.

And come in mass as this is one of the best FLOSS event WW. Really !