Topic: Koozali SME v10 Alpha 5 - coming soon, we hope!

[ReetP]

If you hang out on Rocket.Chat with us you will know that Jean Philippe, Terry Fage and a few others have been spending literally days of their lives fixing things so we can get a Alpha 5 out soon. Some heroic efforts are going on back there.

They are trying to resolve some install issues with anaconda and kickstart - it really is a minefield, and makes me shake with fear just watching them!

There is also work ongoing with a new server-manager written in Mojolicious. And importing contribs to test in v10 which needs masses of work.

For those who are really brave and want to mess with bleeding edge development then please ask for a login to Rocket and come and talk to us and have a go at testing for us.

We need some testing on bare metal as most of have Prox boxes for testing so if you have a machine then come and try it with us.

We'll announce a full release as soon as we can.

[TerryF]

I only try and break things, but JP and a group that includes a Chris a Catton a Michel and a Brian have really lit the torch.

Its close, very close

[Fumetto]

I recovery one HP ML110G4... try to install version 10 as soon as I can...

[TerryF]

Wait for the A5 ISOs to appear on the repos, but it is alive and worth the wait, maybe a little sooner would have been better.

Importantly however all install methods now are useable, standard ISO, DVD, USB, Netinstall, and tada UEFI systems

If you want to give the USB install a drive around the block the app or method you use to create the USB is more than important, see this CentOS wiki entry https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey however I have found that the  liveusb-creator now called Fedora Media Writer 4.1.5 appears to be bug effected, version before, 4.1.4 works under windows as does Rufus 3.10

Rufus is not recommended as some settings can create a dud USB boot. works for me tho with default settings

FedoraMediaWriter-win32-4.1.4.exe is the one to get

Downloads should appear next 24-48 hrs or so

Enjoy

[toothandnail]

Downloaded the full A5 iso, wrote it to a flash drive (dd from an Arch Linux boot), then tired several bare metal installs. Two different machines - an old Dell machine (dual-core Pentium, 4GB memory, HP 8000 Elite, core2duo 2.8 GHz, 8 GB RAM). In both instances, never got as far as an actual install. The installer was very slow to respond, and kept coming up with unexpected errors and terminating. The errors were in not consistent in where they appeared on any two attempts.

I tried to save the report to one of my own machines, but failed - I'll have to see about getting something like an FTP server running to get that to work.

Not being sure if the flash drive was ok (I seem to remember having problems with a flash drive install with A4), I burnt a DVD and tried that. Same problem, just slower...

Both the machines that I've tried have run SME (9.2 in the case of the Dell, earlier 10 alphas in the case of the HP). The HP has has also had Nethserver installed when I was first testing it.

I also downloaded the netinstall iso. Tried that. Still slow, but got further on the HP than I had earlier. Trouble is, I'll have to make some adjustments to the machine before I can go any further (I've got a working A4 install, don't want to lose it, so I'll need to drop another drive in), will try that tomorrow.

One question - there is a prompt while the GUI installer is starting to use inst.txt if the GUI fails. I assume that requires an edit of the Grub boot line, but I'm not clear on the syntax and a couple of attempts I made failed dismally - GUI installer stared and failed each time. Can anyone give me an example of how to start the text installer?

[ReetP]

Thanks for testing.

Your X bug is here

https://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10991

Try and grab some shots on a camera if all else fails. If you can repeat it open a bug.

If you PM me a name and email address I'll add you to Rocket & you can chat directly to the people doing the work!

They might be able to offer some things to try.

[toothandnail]

Thanks for testing.

Your X bug is here

https://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10991

Sorry, can't have explained clearly enough - X is starting without problems, but the installer itself is failing. Failure point is quite variable.

Try and grab some shots on a camera if all else fails. If you can repeat it open a bug.

Will do. Trouble is, the details view doesn't seem to be changeable and it is too small to show all the traceback data. I'll have a look at enabling an FTP server on one of the other boxes and try uploading the report next time.

If you PM me a name and email address I'll add you to Rocket & you can chat directly to the people doing the work!

I'm already on Rocket, but was having problems with my browser - I had it bookmarked in Seamonkey and found that Rocket has problems with that browser. I'll move the details to Firefox or Chromium and see how that goes. Hopefully tomorrow after I have another look at installing to the HP box.

They might be able to offer some things to try.

Hope so. I would really like to see an updated version become available. While I've used Nethserver successfully a few times, there are a number of things that I'm not fond of, would much prefer to be able to continue using SME.

[TerryF]

Good stuff, not seen the behaviour on test boxes and VMs to date, which just means we have a small hardware pool important to get to the bottom of it, re txt installer, get back to you..

I can see an old box or two being resurrected from the garage to have a play

[TerryF]

re variability of fails, have had VMs go west during install when using one of my prox storagas and not another, different brand HDs, also how hard the little HPN54L is chugging away with other VMs when I install a new one.

I had hells own trouble getting a USB install to work during initial QA, it was only when I went back to the Fedora Media Writer version 4.1.4 and Rufus 3.10 although it was not recommended, that I had success, will run one up using dd on my home server, yes I am a heathen sit in front of a overworked win10 PC thanks for jumping in..the more that test particularly bare bones you find issues like this...

keep safe

[ReetP]

For Rocket on my linux desktop I tend to find Chromium works best. I have 2 instances in a tab each, and I rarely get issues. Odd refresh to clear stale sockets but that's it.

Best place to chat this stuff through!!

[TerryF]

Sorry, can't have explained clearly enough - X is starting without problems, but the installer itself is failing. Failure point is quite variable.

Will do. Trouble is, the details view doesn't seem to be changeable and it is too small to show all the traceback data. I'll have a look at enabling an FTP server on one of the other boxes and try uploading the report next time.

I might be worth also having a look at your iso, I know JP was sorting an issue with the md5, also, when I was having issues with the creation of a USB install device had lots of trouble with the app used, latest fedora image writer seemed to be faulty, ended up going back to the version before and all was good, also used Rufus, even though not recommnded by CentOS wiki

[TerryF]

In the interim, you could do a A4 install, using the text installer, I found that was working OK, and do a yum update, its 590mb of updates and then 868packages to be updated, will end up with an A5, tested and working OK

[toothandnail]

Good stuff, not seen the behaviour on test boxes and VMs to date, which just means we have a small hardware pool important to get to the bottom of it, re txt installer, get back to you..

Found the error with the text install - message was flashing by a bit fast. This morning I saw that it should have been inst.text, not inst.txt, which is what I'd used. Had a quick look, but I think I need to read up on the text install before I try it...

I can see an old box or two being resurrected from the garage to have a play

Well, in the collection of SME machines I look after, there are a couple of old HP Microservers (dual core Turion CPU), a dual core Xeon 3040 (in an IBM System x3250 rack), a Lenovo rack which has two Xeon E5-2420 CPUs plus a current generation HP Microserver with an AMD Opteron X3216 dual core. Memory ranges from 4 GB to 8. Plus two Lenovo E series desktops with early i5s.

I'm hoping to be able to determine what, if any, hardware upgrades are needed before I try migrating them all to SME 10. Some of the systems are pretty big these days, don't fancy having to try fresh setups and migrating old mail to any of them...

[toothandnail]

For Rocket on my linux desktop I tend to find Chromium works best. I have 2 instances in a tab each, and I rarely get issues. Odd refresh to clear stale sockets but that's it.

Best place to chat this stuff through!!

I've now got that setup, also decided to try Chromium - Firefox is probably too close to Seamonkey, which was having some strange problems with Rocket. I'm on a night shift tonight which should leave me quite a bit of free time, so will try it then.

[toothandnail]

In the interim, you could do a A4 install, using the text installer, I found that was working OK, and do a yum update, its 590mb of updates and then 868packages to be updated, will end up with an A5, tested and working OK

Just finished a net install, which worked without any real problems (apart from having to turn the primary ethernet port on when the installer first started). Took a while and caused me a bit of confusion when it said that the root user was disabled - forgot about the first reboot setup that SME normally performs.

I'll have a play with that in the next few days. I've also got a Turion-based HP microserver which I use for testing purposes, so I'll see what I can get out of the full install iso on it. It doesn' t have any sort of optical drive, so I'll rewrite the iso to another flash drive and see what it does on that hardware. It also has only one ethernet port and is a royal pain to install a pci-e card, so it will be a stand-alone server at best...

[warren]

Just finished testing install of SMe10 Alpha5 on following  hardware :
1. hardware installed :
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E7400  @ 2.80GHz
RAM 4GB

2. HD 1x 160GB
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

Was bit slow , ( i was using a usb2 Sandisk ) the whole install took 20 minutes. No Errors , finished setup, configured as server only, Internet connection test was ok.

Did a second test on more modern hardware :
1. core i3-7100 3.9Ghz
RAM 8GB DDR4

Hard Disk :WesternDigital :320GB -WD3200BEVT

also installed fine, configured as server-only, internet test connection passed.

I used balenaEtcher ( https://www.balena.io/etcher/?ref=etcher_footer ) to write the iso to usb disk.

[TerryF]

Just finished a net install, which worked without any real problems (apart from having to turn the primary ethernet port on when the installer first started). Took a while and caused me a bit of confusion when it said that the root user was disabled - forgot about the first reboot setup that SME normally performs.

I'll have a play with that in the next few days. I've also got a Turion-based HP microserver which I use for testing purposes, so I'll see what I can get out of the full install iso on it. It doesn' t have any sort of optical drive, so I'll rewrite the iso to another flash drive and see what it does on that hardware. It also has only one ethernet port and is a royal pain to install a pci-e card, so it will be a stand-alone server at best...

Winners are grinners, go as hard as you like, all and any info helps, some of the  people who do know their way around a bit of code have had to return to the their labours to keep roofs and food on the table they will catch up when time permits, so if it seems to get a little quiet its not because ppl aren't working on it, some of us are still beavering away in the back room, looking for things for the them to fix etc

[TerryF]

Just finished testing install of SMe10 Alpha5 on following  hardware :

Thanks Warren, added to notes for future reference..go the wallabies dunno when though

[TerryF]

re random fails during the install of SME10, it would be most helpful if anyone who can try an install using USB or DVD in different hardware, it is appearing as not so much a straight compatability issue as "definitivelly there is some i/o requirements with the installer" so if you can try USB 2 and 3, sata vers, HDs slow and fast   SSD if you have any lying around

A lot I know, if you have any old or even better new hardware free to give it a run and lets us know here the details it will be a more than helpful exercise..

Thanks

[TerryF]

The A4 iso dropped into text mode when from the install menu you select  Troubleshooting - > Install Koozali SME Server10 in basic graphics mode..  The A5 iso drops to the lowest graphics mode the system will take and does not go as far as the A4 iso and enter text mode.

If you need to enter text mode to install because your hardware wont play with the current graphics side of the installer simpley press tab and add the word - text - to the end of the line of options, thats it, the text installer will now start to do the install.

I beleive this behaviour is intended and hardware drivers etc have been configed by upstream as seen.

[krisden]

Hello sme community,

Install successfull 10 alpha-5 from usb stick 2.0 on a Fujitsu Primenergy TX100S3 - xeon E3-1200 - ram ecc=16Gb - 2*500Gb WD Enterprise (not new, no raid controller just ahci) => raid1 installer do the job  ; boot support prepared through Gnome disk utily (restore iso on usb stick, simply)
Backup restore works with a sata Tandberg unit + cartridge from my sme-9.2 (I do it before, on another installation, but at this time I wanted everything is from scratch).

Updates applied from screen and keyboard attached to the server through server-manager => ok
Take a try with ssh on my local network, admin account access is ok but not for root or standard user : root login and password enabled (for tests) gives :

Code: [Select]

ssh -p 20802 my_standard_user@192.168.2.100 -o PubkeyAuthentication=no
Last login: Tue Sep 29 19:34:25 2020 from pc-00010.mydomain.fr
************ Welcome to SME Server 10.0alpha5 *************

Before editing configuration files, familiarise
yourself with the automated events and templates
systems.

Please take the time to read the documentation
https://wiki.koozali.org/Main_Page

Remember that SME Server is free to download
and use, but it is not free to build

Please help the project :
https://wiki.koozali.org/Donate

****************************************************
/usr/bin/rssh: Permission denied
Connection to 192.168.2.100 closed.

I don't add this user to ssh group, in server-manager it is missing the "remote user access" section and I don't remenber if it is a part of a contrib or nativ installed ?
And for root tries, system asks for password but it doesn't accept it, like keyboard mapping is not correct (?)

Another point is about proxy in server-manager : it is enable but my choice is "server only" (a little bug ?)

To be continued, no more time tonight and THANKS*10000000 to all for this great job

[ReetP]

Hi, and thanks for testing!!!

Please keep going

If you want to chat to us about anything to do with development/testing then ask for a login to our Rocket.Chat instance where we tend to hang out. We have some French speakers too