source: trunk/locker/doc/cluedump/services.tex @ 1713

\section{Services}

\subsection{Web}
\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{Apache}
  \begin{itemize}
      \item Everyone wants Apache
      \item Apache's default configuration isn't safe for scripting
      \item Scripting \emph{requires} code execution---mod\_php, mod\_perl, mod\_python
      \item Apache normally runs everything as apache/nobody
      \item How to secure?
      \pause
      \item suEXEC---allows Apache to spawn a process as the user\ldots
      \item {\ldots}even for static content!
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{suEXEC}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item setuid program
    \item Passed the request by Apache
    \item Verifies that the script is in the {\tt web\_scripts} directory
    \item Switches to the uid of the file and executes
    \item Even for static files!
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\subsection{Mail}

\begin{frame}[fragile]
  \frametitle{Postfix}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item Standard Postfix server
    \item No local mailboxes
    \item All mail is passed to procmail
  \end{itemize}
  \begin{verbatim}mailbox_command = /usr/bin/procmail -t \
-a "${EXTENSION}" ~/mail_scripts/procmailrc\end{verbatim}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[fragile]
  \frametitle{procmail}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item Reads \verb|~/mail_scripts/procmailrc| from user's home directory
    \item Users can do whatever they want with messages
    \item AFS causes problems---No way to know if failure is temporary (file server is down) or permanent (user isn't signed up for mail scripts)
    \item All procmail failures are treated as temporary, so mail is queued
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\subsection{Cron (``Shortjobs'')}

\begin{frame}[fragile]
  \frametitle{Cron (cronie)}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item Crontabs are currently stored locally on scripts servers
    \item {\tt cronload} command loads the crontabs from
      \verb|~/cron_scripts/crontab| \pause
    \item Needs improvement
    \item Cron does not fail over with Web and Mail
    \item Plan to move crontabs into AFS and do hot failover
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\subsection{SQL}

\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{sql.mit.edu}
  Though scripts.mit.edu makes use of sql.mit.edu, it's a separate SIPB service with different maintainers.
\begin{itemize}
\item sql.mit.edu provides MySQL databases to scripts users and anyone else
\item SQL data is stored locally, replicated across multiple servers
\item Nightly backups go into AFS
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\subsection{Version control}

\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{SVN and Git hosting}
  \begin{itemize}
    \item New service (September 2008), not well documented
    \item svn://\textit{username}.scripts.mit.edu/ and git://\textit{username}.scripts.mit.edu/
    \item Uses suEXEC to run a svnserve / git-daemon as the user
    \item /mit/\textit{username}/Scripts/\{svn,git\}
    \item git:// is read-only, so future plans for svn+ssh:// and git+ssh://
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}