[maemo-community] maemo.org infra safety - HiFo action URGENTLY needed.

[From: joerg Reisenweber]

On Tue 11 March 2014 17:22:52 joerg Reisenweber wrote:
> On Tue 11 March 2014 10:50:34 twilight312 at gmail.com wrote:
> > From the whole conversation (minus personal attacks), we have a clear
> > picture of one person having too much control over Maemo infrastructure,
> > paired with unresponsible/unpredictable behavior.
> > 
> > Cutting the "whose fault it is" part, the real question is: Can Community
> > fix it now, or Maemo infra got practically "hijacked" by said person
> > beyond recovery? If the former is true, what exactly can be done, and who
> > can do it, to reclaim control over infra for community?
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > /Estel
> 
> could you please elaborate which hijacking you think you have detected?
> Please quote any events that deliver the slightest proof for your claim,
> when you do.
> 
> Do YOU want the responsibility and liability for any accounts on maemo
> infra and for any rogue or dangerous activity happening from those
> accounts? Then please come up with a reasonable way how I can pass this
> responsibility I accepted over to you, I for sure am happy to get rid of
> this annoying role that gives me nothing but bitching from a lot of people
> who don't have a clue how techstaff orga works. Dunno if those I'm doing
> this for (the sysops) are also happy with you as their new partner.
> 
> BR
> jOERG


It occurred to me that maybe a few simple facts might help:
Initially (during migration#1) nemein granted root access on maemo infra to 
Falk and me.
I instantly delegated main responsibility to Falk, asking him to keep my 
accounts on same permission level as a emergency fallback (which we needed 
more than once, both directions)
After migration#2 completed and Xes joined as our 2nd sysop (I never 
considered myself a true sysop), I made sure Falk would share all "passwords" 
with xes and usually also me (for the record). 
So state now is: we got 2 sysops (Falk:1, xes:2) who got all the power, and 
even more power than me since for some domains I don't have immediate access 
(I could reclaim access to most of those domains, via booting of rescue 
systems etc, in case both of our sysops traveled same airplane).
While I myself have root access to most of infra, I cannot cause severe damage 
anywhere that couldn't get fixed by our sysops - I always insisted in keeping 
the status like this, e.g. by finding a off-site backup facility and asking Falk 
to manage that, so even a total destruction or hijacking of servers wouldn't 
kill maemo and the sysops whoever they are can resume from such backup. I even 
insisted to not get *any* access to those new backup servers, keeping the 
credentials for that with Falk and xes only. I hoped to accommodate some 
concerns that seem to exist in HiFo by doing so.
*Occasionally* I do simple tasks on some domains, like an `ls -l|pastebinit` 
or edits of mail aliases when I feel there's an understanding between sysops 
and me that they would allow me to do so.
My main and only mandatory task and "power" in maemo admin (assigned by 
council, HiFo, and nemein) is to accept/reject new techstaff members and to 
suggest to sysops which permissions those new members should get assigned. I'm 
responsible for those decisions though I usually don't execute them myself - 
sysops do. And I coordinate those decisions with HiFo and council, having them 
confirmed or rolled back by those entities. (It seems obvious to me that every 
maintenance crew needs such a position of a keyholder, maybe it's not that 
obvious to others. Maybe somebody wants to come up with a better model, so 
please go ahead and post about it *publicly*, I have no special interest in 
this particular model, neither in the role of keyholder)
A task I also took up "officially" is coordination, which means I suggest topics 
to work on and I suggest techstaff members that might want to take care of 
these topics. And I suggest procedures/methods/solutions and have them 
discussed in wider techstaff at least, usually on public channels like #maemo 
though. This task basically derived from my keyholder task and been born out 
of necessity. All techstaff voluntarily and deliberately agreed on this model 
of organization. There seems to be a consensus that such maintenance only 
works on a hierarchical structure, not any management by occasion or a 
"everybody does what they seem OK" basis. To me it seems HiFo now wants to 
install a different model on maemo maintenance organisation. I can't see which 
model they suggest, I only notice they demand abolishing the existing model.

If anything in all that seems inappropriate, I request public discussion and 
criticism on it, plus detailed constructive suggestions how to improve stuff. 
Nothing is so perfect it couldn't improve, but such improvement will not 
happen on stealth activity taken or by requests to change stuff without any 
rationale to back them up and discussion about the benefits and downsides of 
new situation-to-be.

Best regards
jOERG

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