Google Summer of Code 2014 Ideas

Welcome to the Oregon State University Open Source Lab Google Summer of Code 2014 idea page! Before applying please read over our application guide for details specific to our organization.

Ideas

Data Center Tools

Project: Infrastructure-wide IPMI Management Console

Brief Explanation:

We host a variety of systems in our data center which include a wide array of vendors (i.e. Dell, HP, Sun, etc). Each of these machines utilize some type of out-of-band (OOB) technology such as iLO or iDrac which allows direct access to the machine power, console and other features. Unfortunately each OOB tool is different between the command line access and the console access. However each machine does support the IPMI standard which basically does the same thing. There are several FOSS tools out there already that utilize IPMI in some fashion, but none create a complete tool that stores a whole infrastructure into an interface. This project would create a centralized application to connect to each machine over IPMI.

Expected Results

Either a command line driven or web app driven interface that allows for addition of machines, access to power, serial and vga console. Optionally show event logs and any sensor data.

Knowledge Prerequisite:

General IPMI experience, basic understanding of production-grade server hardware, ability to program in a programming language that works best with IPMI.

Mentor: Lance (Ramereth)


FTP Mirror Syncing

Project: Re-architect OSL FTP Mirror Infrastructure

Github Repo: https://github.com/osuosl/osuosl-mirror-sync

Brief Explanation:

The OSL hosts a three-node FTP mirroring cluster to host various FOSS projects’ ISO images and package databases. Currently it comprises of some custom-made bash scripts that utilize ssh, rsync and cron to coordinate the syncing process. The architecture is a single primary machine that syncs from upstream and then triggers secondary hosts to sync from it. This architecture has served us well over the years but has limitations and needs updating to use more modern features.

There are a variety of methods for syncing the repositories but generally most use rsync. Some have an ssh trigger system (i.e. Ubuntu/Debian) and others want a post script to run to provide results upstream. Finally sometimes we are the primary mirror, meaning we are the starting point, so some projects either manually upload and trigger a sync or we pull from a central source using cron.

In addition, we have some simple monitoring that should be updated. Ideally it would be re-implemented as some type of dashboard showing any repo that is out of sync, disk usage per repo over time, and some other simple statistics.

Expected Results

This project will look at the current architecture, research alternatives and feature needs, design a new system and implement it. Preferably keeping the system simple yet flexible and robust.

Knowledge Prerequisite:

General concepts of API design, mirror syncing technologies (rsync), proficient in a language that fits with the design (possibly Python) and understand bash (the current system uses bash a lot).

Mentor: Lance (Ramereth)


OSL Dashboard

Project: Implement a status dashboard

Brief Explanation:

The OSL currently doesn’t have a system status dashboard. Historically, we utilized some internal projects such as Touchscreen to have such a dashboard, but they have been untouched for quite some time. Ideally we would like to implement using something such as dashing. We are hoping to incorporate a variety of input data to show status on nagios alerts, bandwidth usage, FTP mirror activity, and ticket queue statistics. In addition we hope to use this dashboard at conferences as a way to showcase our project showing various cool metrics. We already have a basic dashing board called fenestra, but it has little to no customization.

Expected Results

A fully functioning dashboard using dashing (or some alternative). This includes the configuration of the project, any custom plugins that need to be written.

Knowledge Prerequisite:

Understanding of Ruby and the related technologies used by dashing. Basic API understanding. Logging.

Mentor: Ken (kennric)


OpenConferenceWare Android

Github Repo: https://github.com/osuosl/ocw-android

Project: Universal Scheduling API

Brief Explanation:

OpenConferenceWare consists of an Android app and a Ruby on Rails back-end Web app, its purpose is to provide access to conference scheduling data to Android devices.

The object of this project is to design a universal API for serving conference scheduling data, then implement this API as a module for the most popular conference website platform (drupal, django, etc, based on research), replacing the current RoR back-end application. The current OCW android app would then be modified to consume data from this API.

Expected Results

A well-documented API for conference schedule data, a reference implementation as a CMS module, and a working android application that connects to the CMS module and effectively displays the schedule data.

Knowledge Prerequisite:

General concepts of API design, Android development experience, and ability to program in the language of the desired reference CMS (PHP, Python or Ruby).

Mentor: Ken (kennric)


Centralized OSL Logging

Project: Implement Graylog2

Brief Explanation:

Currently the OSL sends most of their logs to a centralized loghost, however we don’t have the logs in a searchable format outside of using grep. In addition we have a problem with keeping track of all of the root and cron email that gets sent. Ideally we’d like to have it in a centralized searchable database using something such as Graylog2, then we could tie in other information for dashboards, monitoring and other various tasks.

Expected Results

An implementation of Graylog2 setup and configured to work in our environment. Research possible ways of setting it up and decide on a sane implementation. Design an architecture that fits our specific needs and requirements. Integration of automated email updates from hosted services into the system and create search ability.

Knowledge Prerequisite:

Understanding of system logging and root mail. Understanding of how the various technologies used by Graylog2 and how they interconnect. Experience in APIs and scripting.

Mentor: Justin (pwnguin)


Other OSL Projects

These are projects we don’t have specific project proposals for, but you are free to take a look at and discuss with us any you might be interested in doing.

Ganeti Web Manager

Ganeti Web Manager (GWM) is a Django based web application that allows administrators and clients access to their Ganeti virtualization clusters. Through Ganeti Web Manager users can deploy and manage virtual servers. Ganeti Web Manager is being built by the Open Source Lab to support Supercell, a testing cloud for open source projects.

GWM is in the midst of a major redesign this year so we are opting to not use it as a part of GSoC. We are still working on a basic design document which describes what changes will happen. There may be opportunities to have a GSoC project be a part of this major redesign process, we just haven’t decided on how that would work yet. Feel free to talk with us in #ganeti-webmgr on Freenode for more information. We have already started researching possible ways of using OpenStack Horizon as a dashboard via our Ganeti Horizon experiment project.

Stay tuned for more information.

vagrant-ganeti

Vagrant Ganeti is a Vagrant environment used by developers of Ganeti Web Manager to have a local Ganeti environment for testing. It provides an environment with up to three nodes with Ganeti deployed and ready to use. It currently uses a puppet module that is very specific to this environment.

There are a number of issues with the current way its used that would be great to fix eventually. Some are (but not limited to:

  • Difficult to keep up to date with upstream releases

  • Puppet Module is not production quality

  • Defaults to building Ganeti from source (which is becoming a difficult problem with the haskell requirements)

  • No Chef cookbook for optional use

  • Reduce the amount of platforms supported and simplify it

  • Support for other projects such as Synnefo, and other instance providers

Please talk with Ramereth in #osuosl-gsoc on Freenode if you want to propose an idea for this project.

Ganeti Instance Image

Ganeti Instance Image is a guest OS definition for Ganeti that uses either filesystem dumps or tar ball images to deploy instances. The goal of this OS definition is to allow fast and flexible installation of instances without the need for external tools such as debootstrap. It was originally based on ganeti-instance-debootstrap.

Much of what Ganeti Instance Image was set out to do has been replaced by snf-image. So at this point I would like to see only bug fixes or minor feature additions to this project.

Please talk to Ramereth in #osuosl-gsoc on Freenode if you want to propose an idea for this project.

Protein Geometry Database (PGD)

Protein Geometry Database is a specialized search engine for protein geometry. It allows you to explore either protein conformation or protein covalent geometry or the correlations between protein conformation and bond angles and lengths. It is primarily a django project with a lot of javascript logic built into it. This project is a joint venture between the OSUOSL and the Oregon State University Biochemistry department on campus.

This project is currently in maintenance mode however we would love to have a full audit of the code or any other minor cleanup/modifications. We would love to re-architect this project someday but it likely won’t happen.

Please talk to kennric in #osuosl-gsoc on Freenode if you want to propose an idea for this project.


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**Brief Explanation:**

**Expected Results**

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Mentor: