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hi,

given the current low uptake of stable server usage, we have decided we cannot afford to dedicate an entire server to it, which ends up being mostly idle. therefore we will be migrating the stable server to a zone (virtual machine) on hyacinth, which is also the new /home server. there should be no change in either reliability or performance as a result.

unlike the previous move, no user intervention will be required this time. we are currently copying the existing /users and /projects directories to the new server. at switchover time, an incremental rsync will be done to copy any changes since then. you can log into the new server now, using the hostname "newstable.toolserver.org"; however, i recommend not changing any files, as they will be overwritten when the next copy is done. if you would prefer to edit files on the new server, let me know and i will exclude your project from the automatic copy.

(it may take a while until you can log in, since not all .ssh directories have been copied yet.)

i *do* recommend doing a quick sanity check of your software on the new server; for example, that any software or libraries it needs are available and work correctly.

downtime for the final migration will be on Monday, 6th June, in line with the maintenance schedule for stable. we might begin the downtime slightly earlier than usual (5AM UTC) to allow time for the file copies.

i would like to change to ZWS at the same time as the migration; if your project has no yet confirmed that it works with ZWS, *please* consider trying to do so before the migration, as it will make things much easier for us. this applies to:

* wma * wmfgcbot

if you are unable to complete the web server migration yourself, please ask for help, either on IRC or the mailing list.

the move is accompanied by a more recent version of the TS package repository (/opt/ts), which includes newer versions of Perl, Python and other software. this is documented in more detail at:

https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Solaris_software

for projects using third-party Python modules currently installed in /opt/ts/lib/python2.4/lib/site-packages, these will still be available after the move. however, we recommend changing to the Toolserver Python.

after the move is complete, the existing stable server (willow) will be repurposed into a general login server. more details on this will follow later.

lastly, we are still interested in more stable projects. stable server projects can have multiple maintainers, which reduces the workload on one maintainer, and means tools don't die when their maintainers leave.

we are currently considering disabling the unmaintained web tools of expired user accounts, meaning these tools will stop working. stable tools will only be disabled if *all* maintainers leave, and no new maintainer can be found.

additionally, the stable Toolserver has a well-defined maintenance schedule to avoid downtime during peak times, and has much less unplanned downtime than the normal Toolserver.

if you would like to move a project to stable, open a request in the TS project in JIRA, describing the project and listing the initial maintainer(s).

- river.