[WG: Sakai QA] QA servers and Config Viewer/Editor

[Matthew Jones]

Well, Tony updated the poms before he left, I just fixed a couple of
small jiras to get it working with last minute changed in 2.6. We are
only using config viewer so I don't know much about config editor
though I did get it up and running in a local 2.6 build. You have to
apply the patches to entitybroker and kernel (to allow realtime
modification of property values)
https://source.sakaiproject.org/viewsvn/config-editor/trunk/patches/?root=contrib

All of the fixes I'd made to trunk and hope to make some of these improvements.

I don't believe that config editor notifies other servers of setting
changes, nor does it write the changes and load them up at startup. In
order for the cluster to know about changes it would need to either be
notified via entitybroker or poll the database table.

We were thinking of using config-editor as a backend source for our
tool to allow runtime tool disabling:

(https://source.sakaiproject.org/viewsvn/inactivate_tools/?root=contrib)

However we ended up writing a simpler tool with a YAML input. The
database table consisting of key:value pairs is similar to what config
editor would likely use to mimic a property file. Not sure about
multi-value properties, perhaps just storing as csv (should really
have csv reading/writing in the kernel SAK-14640) or a yaml syntax.

One of my top annoyances is the sakai property file and not being able
to adjust some things (log levels, presence) at runtime. I also love
how the evaluation tool has it's own set of runtime defined (and
cluster propagated) properties, and wish something generic like this
existed for all tools. But there's other things above that in my todo
list at the moment. :/

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Jean-Francois Leveque
<jean-francois.leveque at upmc.fr> wrote:
> Thanks for the update of trunk, Matthew. It seems you're maintaining it
> right now for your own purposes. Why not maintaining it for the community in
> the 2.6.x branch instead of updating your own branch?
>
> Do you mean you're already running Config Editor with a custom kernel?
>
> Do you know if Config Editor still needs to be fixed to get changes across
> load balanced servers?
>
> I don't need property alterations right now, but being on a different time
> zone, I get configuration changes on my next working day or later. I would
> reset the values after making a test, but understand the danger and leave
> the decision to QA server admins.
>
> Matthew Jones a écrit :
>>
>> The trunk of both tools are updated to work with 2.6. Config Viewer builds
>> and installs without any problem and only binds to kernel. This should be
>> easy to drop onto a QA server.
>>
>> Config Editor requires a patch to the kernel, which is something that
>> generally isn't done on the QA's (kernel builds).
>>
>> I agree that having config viewer would be useful. We've been running it
>> at michigan for awhile, and are running the 2.6 modified version. The
>> problem I can see with having config editor is that while it could be useful
>> for one person to test some settings on a QA server, it would make the
>> server settings constantly variable. It also doesn't persist the settings
>> making the QA also a less predictable instance.
>>
>> If you need to alter a certain property to verify a change, just send a
>> note to the list and I'm sure one or more of the servers admins could
>> accommodate your request.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 6:28 AM, Jean-Francois Leveque
>> <jean-francois.leveque at upmc.fr <mailto:jean-francois.leveque at upmc.fr>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>    As far as I can remember, I was involved in a QA discussion at the last
>>    conference and everybody thought it was a good idea to include Config
>>    Viewer on QA servers, event if it's still a contrib project.
>>
>>    I now think it might be a good idea to also include Config Editor to be
>>    able to alter the default QA configuration to test such issues that
>>    depends on certain values in sakai.properties. This may be the case
>> with
>>    SAK-16317, haven't checked the default QA configuration.
>>
>>    It seems Config Viewer needs to be updated for 2.6 and it might also be
>>    the case for Config Editor. Should the Maintenance Team be involved in
>>    this or do we have volunteers right now?
>>
>>    What do you think about the whole idea?
>>
>>    Cheers,
>>
>>    Jean-Francois
>