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- Athena machines have filesystem-level access to AFS.
- Athena machines periodically clean up files in temporary areas to avoid slowly filling the disk.
- Athena machines automatically take updates when we put out new releases.
- DONE Athena machines have a consistent set of native platform packages installed, which is a superset of the default package set.
- Athena machines can be flagged as "public", which implies that they have no persistent data or customizations and can engage in more aggressive cleanup activities.
- The default GNOME panel setup contains a menu of important Athena locker software (currently unmaintained). For performance reasons, the files representing this menu must be stored on local disk.
- DESUPPORT Some lockers containing frequently-used software are stored on local disk for performance reasons.
- Cluster machines perform some self-integrity checking to repair accidental and casual changes to their configurations.
- Athena machines may be part of a Hesiod "cluster" which can determine whether they take beta updates, whether they are cluster/quickstation machines, and what their default printers are.
- Particular aspects of Athena machines can be configured by editing /etc/athena/rc.conf.
- DESUPPORT Cluster machines use static IP addresses and have an easy procedure for changing IP addresses when they are moved to different subnets.
- DESUPPORT Cluster machines run a local name server and are configured to use it to cache name lookup results.
- DESUPPORT Admins can enable various nework services with the "mkserv" command; the most popular of these is "mkserv remote" to permanently enable remote access daemons.
- Athena machines almost always have the correct time as determined by time.mit.edu.
- DESUPPORT Athena machines automatically synchronize the hardware clock following Daylight Savings Time changes.
- DONE Athena users receive messages of the day prior to logging in (the gmotd) and upon logging in (the motd) and can also be sent personalized system messages upon logging in about things like impending account cancellations (lert).
- Users can submit bug reports to the appropriate channel using the sendbug command.
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Current solution: The athena-ws package installs a script /etc/athena/update_ws which is invoked by the boot and reactivate scripts. update_ws runs a script out of the sysprefix area (determined by the machine's Hesiod cluster information) which checks for a new numbered patch release and invokes rpmupdate from the athena-rpmupdate package to update the machine's RPM set to a new version.
Planned solution: (Unfinished.)Hidden Data
Status: Not done.
Milestone: Core (one week).
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Current solution: In the release area in AFS, the list-9.4.X files contain a list of pathnames of RHEL 4 packages. When we want to add or remove a native package in a patch release, we simply include it or omit it from the list file for that patch, and rpmupdate adds or removes the RPM during the update. Non-included RHEL 4 packages are listed in the upgrade-9.4.X file; rpmupdate will upgrade these packages if they are locally installed on a private machine, but will not install them.
Planned solution: : (Unfinished.)
Status: Debathena includes a set of metapackages, but we will want to expand this set for cluster machines.
The debathena-cluster-software metapackage will depend on the required software. This metapackage will be implied by debathena-cluster, but not by debathena-workstation as it will be quite large and not desirable for all privately administered machines.
Status: Done; will require ongoing maintenance as software needs ariseMilestone: Core (one day).
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Feature: Athena machines can be flagged as "public", which implies that they have no persistent data or customizations and can engage in more aggressive cleanup activities.
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Status: Debathena has a package for getcluster; otherwise not done.
Milestone: Core Cluster (one daytwo days).
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Feature: Particular aspects of Athena machines can be configured by editing /etc/athena/rc.conf.
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