-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

hi,

over the next couple of weeks (hopefully) a couple of changes will be made to the toolserver that affect users.

1. toolserver.org

the toolserver will move to the new domain "toolserver.org". this will have the following effects on the names of things:

- - URLs for users' public_html directories, i.e. http://tools.wikimedia.de/~<username>/, will change to http://toolserver.org/~<username>/.

the old URLs will redirect (HTTP moved permanently) to the new address.

- - services under *.ts.wikimedia.org will move to the same name under toolserver.org. for example, http://wiki.ts.wikimedia.org/ will become http://wiki.toolserver.org/.

this does not apply to stable.ts.wikimedia.org; please read below if you have projects on the stable server.

- - email addresses for toolserver users will be of the form "<username>@toolserver.org". existing addresses of the form "<username>@ts.wikimedia.org", "<username>@tools.wikimedia.de" and "<username>@hemlock.ts.wikimedia.org" will continue to work.

(please remember that these addressses are only to be used for purposes directly related to the toolserver, they are not general-purpose forwarding addresses.)

some things will not change: the mailing lists (which will remain at lists.wikimedia.org), the ts-admins support address (which will remain at wikimedia.org).

2. new login server

a new login server will be added; hemlock (the existing login server) will become the web server. no name has been chosen for the new server, but rather than logging into the server by name, a new alias will be added: login.toolserver.org. this is the host users should connect to via SSH to log in. (this should have been done when hemlock was installed; sorry for the inconvenience.)

it will still be possible to log in to hemlock for the sole purpose of diagnosing problems with CGI scripts; running any other tasks on that server will be forbidden.

migration from hemlock to the new login server is expected to take less than a day, during which both servers will be inaccessible. other than the name, the new server will appear identical to hemlock; crontabs will be copied, an identical set of software will be installed, etc.

changes to the login server (e.g. software installation) will be made to the web server at the same time, so there should be no problems with developing scripts on one system and running them on the other.

3. new stable server

the current stable.ts.wikimedia.org is a virtual server on vandale. we will be installing a new server to replace this.

the new server will have an identical configuration (in terms of software, user/project setup, etc.) to the current stable server. however, home directories and projects will not be copied over automatically. rather, the old server at stable.ts.wikimedia.org will remain up, and the new server will be called stable.toolserver.org. when a project is ready, it will be moved to the new server and an HTTP redirect (if applicable) added on the old server. projects can be moved by an administrator, or by a project developer, whichever is easier.

other than the move, there will be no downtime for tools hosted on the stable server.

- ----

there is no fixed timeline for these changes. the move to toolserver.org will happen soonest; Arne should have assigned the domain to us by today (Tuesday) at which time i will begin the migration immediately.

as the load on hemlock is more urgent than the stable server, this will happen next, depending on when the server is set up at the colo (hopefully that will be this week). i'll send another mail to the list when we're ready to start on this.

the new stable server will be set up after the migration to the new login server is complete.

if you have any questions about these changes, please reply to toolserver-l (not my personal address).

- river.