UbuntuServerTasks

Revision 5 as of 2006-07-05 14:30:16

Clear message

Summary

Define and implement more common installation targets for the server CD.

Rationale

The LAMP install in Dapper was well-received, and (in the associated press release) we have committed to provide more "simple server setup" targets for people who want to hit the ground running more easily with ubuntu-server.

Adding 10 new boot options to the CD sounds like a Very Bad Idea (boot options are UI-limited, and for instance you can only select one, not combine them). This specification therefore depends on ReviveTasksel to provide us with a task selection UI in the installer.

Survey of existing Debian tasks (apart from language and "special" tasks, Debian task policy is generally that each task should correspond to a specific thing a user wants to do):

  • lots of language tasks (not required in Ubuntu due to language packs)
  • database server
  • desktop
  • DNS server
  • file server
  • laptop
  • mail server
  • manual (runs aptitude, probably doesn't actually work at the moment)
  • print server
  • standard (i.e. priority)
  • web server

Use cases

Scope

Design

If necessary, the ubuntu-server CD will tell tasksel to present all available tasks rather than just installing its default.

The following is a list of suggested tasks. This specification does not attempt to lay down precisely which packages will be selected for each task; the implementor should select these based on which packages can best be supported by Ubuntu, which provide the best out-of-the-box experience, and so on. In general (and there will doubtless be the occasional exception) we should avoid offering a superfluity of alternatives in the task selector, and err more on the side of providing best-of-breed recommendations; more advanced users with set ideas of exactly what they want should be quite happy to use a full-scale package manager.

Server tasks:

  • Virtualization Server (Xen, vserver)
  • Plain LAMP server
    • flavors of P covering php, mod_(python|perl), rails?
    • flavors of M covering mysql, postgres
  • Zope server ?
    • Plone?
  • CMS
  • Plain mail server
    • IMAP(S): dovecot, courier
    • POP3(S): dovecot, courier
    • SMTP(TLS): postfix, exim
    • web: no webmail clients in main; potential choices are sqwebmail, squirrelmail for main promotion (roundcubemail is really nice, too)
    • mailing lists: mailman
    • anti-spam tools: bogofilter, spamassassin, razor, dspam, etc.
  • All the bells and whistles mail server
    • Virtual hosting
    • probably using the full courier suite, or a postfix/dovecot solution.
  • Issue tracking / CRM etc.:
    • SugarCRM
    • RT
    • Groupware servers (opengroupware, phpgroupware)
    • Bugzilla / Mantis
  • Authentication server
    • openldap, kerberos
  • Forums software server
    • phorum
    • phpbb
  • Monitoring software
    • munin
    • nagios
    • mrtg
    • opennms
  • Wiki Software
    • moin + mod_python
  • blog software:
    • pyblosxom (if Tollef wants it in main)

Implementation

Code

Data preservation and migration

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

Collection of commercial software we might be supporting on the server (and providing packages for):

Comments

RoaldHopman : There is a really interesting and relevant thread going on in the Edgy Development section at www.ubuntuforums.org :

It's time to bring Ubuntu to the enterprise http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=191858

CategorySpec