[Server-devel] [UKids] Server Backup on HaitiOS

[James Cameron]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 03:35:40PM -0400, George Hunt wrote:
> Tim discovered that backups to the XSCE in release 5.0 were
> failing.  I had changed ds-backup-server to use the WSGI interface
> (mod_python was obsoleted in FC18).

I suggest adding a test for backups to the release checklist for XSCE.

> So I assumed  that the ball was in my court. But I believe the test
> just completed indicates that the problem was really that the
> superuser bit in /bin/ ping was removed in FC17 (the base for
> HaitiOS).

It was replaced by another mechanism in Fedora 17 (no core), but that
other mechanism was incorrectly removed by OLPC OS, and the setuid bit
is a workaround.

(In my opinion a more correct solution is to change ds-backup to not
need ping, but instead attempt the backup anyway.  This would avoid
failing a backup if ping could not be run.)

> The test:
> 
>  1. Load OS13.2.0 on an XO4. 
>  2. Install XSCE release 5.0 on top of that -- installs ds-backup-server hash
>     c5d86 (unchanged from XSCE-0.4)
>  3. Load HaitiOS hash 6d78 on an XO1
>  4. Register XO1 to server
>  5. Wait for 2 hours -- observe no data in directory at /library/user/SHC....
>  6. execute "chmod 4755 /bin/ping" on the XO1
>  7. Wait for 1 hour -- observe that the backup had occurred

You can make this test faster by starting the backup manually on the
XO-1, by typing this in Terminal:

	/usr/bin/ds-backup.sh

You can find in /etc/cron.d/ds-backup the method by which the backup
is started.

> I think the wifi fixup that Tim has prepared for Sora to take to
> Haiti should include the change in permissions on /bin/pin.  
> 
> I do remember that, in the Tiny Core environment, it is hard to find
> the file that I wanted to change (because I don't have a clear idea
> of the disk tree, before the chroot that the firmware does as it is
> bringing up the XO. 

You can find files more easily in the Tiny Core Linux environment by
doing the chroot manually at a prompt.  You can pull fragments out of
Jerry's xo-custom, especially the functions, and use them as command
line tools.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/