Dockerizing OpenQA

If you checked the Installation Matrices in the last two months or so, or read any of the HappyAssassin’s blogposts, you know that we started using OpenQA to automate some of the Installation Testcases.

The OpenQA project is heavily developed, which means both quick fixes and responses to feature requests, but also a bit of a pain for “production use” – when the stuff is changing rapidly, only AdamW can keep the pace 🙂 Some of this is addressed by the OpenQA’s stable branch, but even that is changing a lot from update to update, and to asses the tool properly, we really wanted to be able to just use a certain version, figure stuff out, and set it up in production.
The other “issue” is, that you need to have an OpenSuse box to use OpenQA, and having OpenSuse in Fedora Infrastructure would most certainly be frowned upon. Thus Garretraziel (mostly) and I (mostly cheerleading) decided to “freeze” the software in a specific state, and what better to use than Docker !

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3D Printing Workflow with InkScape

After some serious pushing from the guys at the office, I finally decided to briefly sum-up my (quite basic, to be honest) 3D-printing work-flow.

Let’s s say you want to 3D-print some of your awesome Fedora Badges. I’ll take the Free Media Badge as an example.

FAS Authentication for TG2 apps

While working on ResultsDB’s frontend, I’ve finally hit the “We need authentication/authorisation!” spot.  As this is a Fedora effort, FAS was an immediate thought. After some random googling, I found the FASWho Plugin page. So I decided to get my hands dirty, and read through the documentation, browsing all the random hyperlinks, and found no examples whatsoever. Few hours of pointless experimentation (yes, I’m no TurboGears2 pro ;)), I finally pinged lmacken, and asked for help.

He was so kind to point me to the source code for the Fedora Tagger (cool app, btw!), so I can see, test and play around with working code.

In the end, it is way easier, than I’d thought it is. If you have quickstarted TG2 project, these are the minimal changes (in pseudo-diff format) to make it FAS-Login-able.

Beefy Miracle FTW!

I know that the hype is almost over, so you’ll probably all hate me for this post, but I finally got my hands on the photos from our little ‘celebration’:

 

So once and for all – Beefy Miracle, woot woot!

FudCon Milan 2011 – the rest of it

The Shortest FudCon Ever

Yay, after two days of exploring the cultural and artistic values of Milan, we finally had the chance to get busy with something more geeky. After we signed up, and received absolutely awesome t-shirts, we gathered in one of the rooms, and started the hunt for the second most important commodity. This is just the beginning of the mighty beast to come.

Once we managed to overload the fuses, Jared Smith came forward and had his welcome speach. Then all the people with presentations stood up, briefly described their talks, and so the barcamp started.

 

I liked all the sessions, I attended. The Inkscape workshop was the first one on my list. Even though the presentation was held quite good, I’m still not convinced, that Inkscape is a good tool. But it might be just my huge love for the intuitive and easy-to-use UI of CorelDraw 9, that holds me back. (but still, being required to change the angular rotation of an object in the source xml… meh).

Then I moved to room Gamma, where the Aeolus Project presentation was held. My intention was to evaluate, whether we could use it (or bend it) for our own humble purposes (disposable test clients for AutoQA), but it seems to be targeted more to the corporate users. BUT we might be able to use some parts of the project, like Image Factory, so nothing is lost!

After the lunch, Kamil and I held the AutoQA presentation. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of people in the room. Just before I had to go to the front 😀 As you can probably guess from my red face, the stage–fright affected me quite a bit. We then had some questions about Upgradepath & the whole AutoQA thing (yes guys, I’ll create the KVM images of the server-client setup in a week or two).

 

The highlight of my day was Jared’s “You could be the next Fedora Project Leader” talk. He’s always inspiring, and I feel really driven to do a lot of good stuff after his talks. Even the same-old-fisherman-joke got me laughing.

I spent the rest of the barcamp on ZeroMQ and Safe Haven talks. ZeroMQ (Message Queue) finally made me better understand the thoughts and principles behind message queues, even though I won’t be using this little beast as such (but the python bindings look AWESOME!). The Safe Haven is a new-born project for backing up systems. It has some interesting features like ISO/archive/filesystem image inspection (so you really back-up on a file basis), automatic metadata backup and replication, or ability to ‘revert roles’ from client to server (even to function as a proxy for other clients).

FudPub

The evening was dedicated to another party – this time in a pizza restaurant. I must say, that I have eaten better pizza than that. But since the main intent of the FudPub is to have fun, I loved the event and people (especially the beefy miracle!).

 

Hackfest and the way home

Even though I did not really participate in the hackfest sessions, it was quite refreshing to see all the people doing the stuff they love, whilst getting up to speed with the ton of e-mails and working on ResultsDB. There were two highlights of the day though. Melting power connector of some Brazilian wifi hotspot, and (sadly closed) Python Cafe. I’ll definitely have a cofee there, should I ever return to Milan.

Our trip home was a bit stressful though. We made a huge error of booking seats in the shuttle to Bergamo Airport in advance. One would think, that electronic ticket with barcode and passenger id should suffice even on the screen (what would be the point of electronic ticket otherwise…), but no. When we arrived to the bus station, we got only energic “No, no, no! Paper!” from the just-italian-speaking driver. After a while, some other guy explained, that they need a printed proof to pass to the agency, in order to get their money. So we can either print it, or buy other ticket. We tried our best to find a printer (we even tried to convince some ladies on the train station to print it for us), but without success.

To sum it up – while in Italy, never buy tickets in advance, if you don’t have access to a printer. The ticket means basically nothing (as they don’t really reserve the seats), and it’s more of a trouble than one would like.

Also, I’ll never ever again fly with Ryanair. I’d rather sit an hour more in bus from Vienna to Brno, then listen to the never-ending advertisements…

FudCon Milan 2011 – Day 2

Trip around Milan, pt. 2

Since we traded our breakfast for teh internetz (Day 1), our day started by exploring local store. I was once again struck by the variety of fruits, cheese, and of course dry-cured hams (Prosciutto). I must admit, that  I was not able to resist, and spent a lot on these delights during the whole trip 🙂

Today, we decided to explore the southern part of the city centre, starting (once again) with those “nicely painted” houses on the map. We started at University of Milan (“Universita degli Studi di Milano”), we sneaked in, and looked around, but did not have enough courage to visit university canteen. Then we proceeded to nearby Public Court (“Avvocatura Distrettuale Dello Stato”). Once again, I was amazed by the combination of modern and antic stuff located just next to each other.

     

If you look closer, you can spot a single common element of all these pictures. Yes! Tons of scooters and motorcycles. These were absolutely everywhere, using pedestrian crossings as alternative routes (if there is a red light in the desired path…) and doing all other for-me-previously-unthinkable actions 🙂

But to get back to our tour. Next stop was the Rotonda della Besana – now de-consecrated church of Archangel Michael used as a warehouse. But it’s still a peacefull and awesome looking place.

 

After few quiet minutes in the Rotonda, we catched a bus, which took us to Porta Romana (yet another Victory arc), and then we took a ride by really crowded tram to the Basilica Di Sant Eustorgio and the public gardens behind it.

 

Since we were unable to find our way in, we walked up north, and found out another church – Basilica Di Sant Lorenzo – which is my second favourite, just a tiny bit behind the Duomo.

The reason to this is quite simple – it’s a building from around 400 AD, which means just one – simple and clean design. But to the fun part – in the middle-age (when the church was actually sanctified), they thought that this ancient building was either public spa or pagan temple (because of the ground plan). Quite a fun-fact. And the “seamlessly” placed pipe organ is just a sweet cherry on the top 🙂

   

We then ended our trip in “yet another public garden”, where we admired few elephants, and fed a whole squadron of pigeons with breadsticks.

     

Welcome party

The welcome party took place in Yguana Cafe. This was the first time, I managed to get lost (even with map :)), but thanks to our city tour, we found ourselves in front of the University of Milan, got the map oriented right, and found the pub with no further problems.

We were heartily welcomed by the organizers. The pub has the concept of “pay the absolutely ridiculous price for a drink, but then the food is free”. Which is actually not that bad, but we (czechs) are always up for the opposite of that  (no food, but as much beer as possible :D). We talked briefly with random people, met the rest of the guys who flew, and then went back to the hotel quite early, to be well rested and brisk during the actual FudCon conference.

   

FudCon Milan 2011 – Day 1

Trip to Milan

Kudos to Kamil Paral <http://kparal.wordpress.com> for all the nice pictures!

It’s 3.10 AM, and Kamil and I meet at the Brno bus station, to begin our trip to Italy. I did not sleep, so I’m really looking forward to those comfy seats of the Student Agency bus. We embarked in the half-empty vehicle, got our headphones, tried out the new ‘one-screen-per-person’ interface (games!), and then I slept all the way to Vienna. I guess that nothing special happened, since we arrived on time, and unharmed 🙂

We then found the right part of the Airport, and checked in. As we found out later, we made it to the gate just on time – we were the last ones, actually 🙂 After a quick trip all over the airport, we arrived to the Fly Niki airplane, and took our seats. I must say, that seeing night Vienna from the sky is awesome experience. Once again, the flight was absolutely awesome (even though I was hoping for a storm or at least some turbulence…), we even received complimentary breakfast – the last “real bread” for the next 4 days to come.

After we successfully claimed our bags, we bought tickets for a shuttle to Milan, and rushed out. According to the time schedule, the trip from Malpensa Airport to Milan Centrale Station should take 45 minutes. Well, it’s Italy… You guessed it right, it takes twice the time 😀 Although it might have been thanks to the highway full of cars, I think that it’s just the Italian nature.

Hotel

OK, so we’re on Milan Centrale, and we’d like to get to the Hotel Diablo. HUGE kudos to Kamil for printing out the map of Milan public transport. Awesome idea, which helped us _a lot_ during our stay in Italy. After few minutes of walking around, we managed to find the tram station. Minor victory of ours. But then again, it won’t be Italy, if things were straightforward. Only naive tourist would think, that there will be some ticket machine, or at least public transport office in the Central station, where all the foreign people arrive. No, it’s not that easy. You need to find a nearest tobacconist, and buy your ticket there.

We were quite lucky, since the man in tobacco shop had excelent english. We then got inside the tram, and hoped, that all the surprises are over. Once again, we were fools to believe in this nonsense 🙂

 

A short tram trip and walk later, we managed to find the correct address, but not the hotel. There was just a huge barred entrance. After a while, Kamil started to read the signs on doorbells, and found a tiny “Hotel Diablo” sticker at the bottom. Yes, Hotel Diablo is located inside another building 😀

There was a rasta-looking guy on reception, who told us, that because of some (unspecified) problem, they can’t acomodate us, but arranged a room in another hotel (about 2 kilometers away). He gave us a map, and so we continued our walk through Milan.

The (possibly most important) thing one needs to know, while traveling on foot, is “Be fearless, or you won’t cross the street”. The people boldly jumping in front of the cars reminded me of my trip to Romania, where it is absolutely the same. So two kilometers and few near-death experiences later, we arrived to the *** Hotel Mayorca. The room was not yet ready, so we decided to wait on reception. Here, I’d like to point out the biggest difference between one star and three stars hotel – free wifi. There is none 😀 Other than that, I guess it’s the same. Our room was not particulary awesome, but not the worst ever either, so apart of the wifi problem, it was probably a good deal. We (Kamil) also “somewhat solved” the internet problem by talking the reception clerk into changing our breakfasts for a 5 hours wifi voucher (yay, geek time!).

 

Trip around milan, pt. 1

After our find-a-hotel escapade, we went for a walk adound Milan. Using the ‘nicely painted buildings’ on the map as a guide, we have seen local “Cita Studi” (University town), and then decided to take the underground train to the city centre. After arriving to the Lanza station, we went to the “Castello Sforzesco” – very nice castle with even nicer public garden.

 

Here, we had our next “How to survive in Italy” experience. Do not ever let those “senegals” stop you or talk to you (unless you want to end up with some useless junk in your hands). We made a mistake, and payed one euro for it 🙂

The gardens are… gardens 🙂 Nice, but nothing special. The interesting thing is, though, that the “water stations” or “public wells” (forgive me for not being able to name it better), contain drinkable water. I did not know it, and so suffered from dehydration for quite a while.

 

On the other side of these public gardens (“Parco Sempione”), there is a (yes ‘a’ since there are few other) Triumphal Arch (“Arco dela Pace”). I found this particular one the best looking.

The last touristic point on our list was Milan Cathedral (“Duomo di Milano”). It was absolutely breathtaking, even though I’m not a Christian, it’s always a great experience to stand silently in a huge cathedral and admire the skill of all the architects, constructors and artists. I’d absolutely recommend visiting Milan just to see the Duomo. But be sure to take modest clothes – I had a “Trousers too short sir!” problem at the entrance, but managed to sneak between the guarding policemen and soldiers.

   

Since I was really tired, and my feet started to hurt a lot, I talked Kamil into returning to the Hotel. On the way home, we browsed through local shopping pallace, where even the McDonalds has its sign golden. Great place to buy Prada, Louis Vuitton and other designer items though.

 

Once we were back in the hotel, I fell into a coma just after laying down “to read something”. I just hope, that I did not scare Kamil to death by sleeping 16 hours in a row 🙂