Re: [gentoo-dev] RFP: System to account users configurations

["Faust Tanasescu" <faust_tanasescu@hotmail.com>]

>From: Rufiao <rufiao@gmx.net>
>Reply-To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
>To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
>Subject: [gentoo-dev] RFP: System to account users configurations
>Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 17:16:21 -0300
>
>
>As stated in bug #3778 (http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3778):
>
>1. Rationale
>
>This system is inspired by Debian's popularity-contest package
>(http://packages.debian.org/stable/misc/popularity-contest.html) with some
>important enhancements. The key idea is to provide means for the Gentoo
>community to account the most used packages, hardware configurations, 
>kernel
>versions, compile flags and profiles. Additionaly, this system aims to
>provide the following advantages:
>
>- Allow the creation of CD layouts which include the most used packages for
>   each profile
>- Allow the developers to investigate the most used configurations, and 
>focus
>   on them
>   for setting priorities, documentation, standard kernel configurations, 
>etc.
>- Give some figures about the number of active users in the community
>
>2. Description
>
>The system comprises of 2 subsistems:
>
>- A client-side system that runs periodically through cron to grab 
>information
>   from users' configurations and post them to the server system trhough 
>HTTP.
>   This system does not require any user intervention beyond the initial
>   configuration.
>
>- A server-side system running on the gentoo.org domain capable of 
>receiving
>   the information provided by the users, store them on a database and 
>create
>   statistics with them. Also, it provides a web front-end to query the
>   database.
>
>The following information will be processed by the system:
>
>- Packages installed, including their versions (as in
>   `qpkg -nc -I -v` from the gentoolkit package)
>- Flags in make.conf (as in
>   `egrep "^(USE|CHOST|CFLAGS|CXXFLAGS)" /etc/make.conf`)
>- CPU info (as in `egrep "^(model name|cpu MHz)" /proc/cpuinfo`)
>- System memory (as in `egrep "^MemTotal:" /proc/meminfo`)
>- PCI devices (as in
>   `lspci | colrm 1 8 | sed 's/\(.*\)(.*/\1/'` from the pciutils package)
>- USB devices (as in `lsusb | grep iProduct | colrm 1 28` from the
>   usbutils packages)
>- Kernel version (as in `uname -r`)
>- Profile being used (as in
>   `ls -ld /etc/make.profile | awk '{print $NF}' | awk -F/ '{print $NF}'`)
>
>In the client side, the procedure to provide data for the system is the
>following:
>
>- User emerge the package, which:
>   - Sets a crontab entry to let the system run periodically, possibly
>     requiring user intervention to specify when the system should run
>   - Points to an URL (in the gentoo.org domain) for signup
>- User go to the provided url, which requests the e-mail from the user, and
>   that the user transcribe a random 4-letters message shown as an image to
>   a text box. These requirements are used to ensure, as long as possible,
>   the autenticity of the data and to avoid automated signups

Users are required to 1) want to participate to this survey 2) asked when 
system should run information grab 3) go to URL to subscribe to service 4) 
get magic key from server 5) set up client system 6) check it runs well.

We don't have many users and setup is very complicated to my taste for 
somethng that brings nothing to me as a gentoo user. And we want people to 
sue this. the more, the better.
I don't know about this, but as a gentoo user, if a system like this were 
available I would not bother installing it. It is way too lenghty and I get 
nothing out of it as an individual.

I propose making this whole process a lot simpler for the client. What we 
must keep in mind is that no system is perfect, and to not fall into 
paranoia. I therefore propose shortening the setup of this survey system to 
something smaller.

1) user required to emerge package.
2) they are asked when the collect should run

and that's it

now how to keep people from abusing of this system is a whole new question 
and I think we should treat it separately. However I'd like to propose 
something as well.

it's the server's duty to protect itself from idiots. When client connects 
to server to upload it's information file, the server sends the client a 
unique key that expires after 1 week or couple days.. depends on how often 
we want input. If client tries to send input again it could remove the key 
file of course and claim it's new to the service, that's why the submitter's 
IP address needs to be recorded for first-time users as well.

Of course system  is not perfect... the idiot could change his IP address of 
course no problemo ... he could disconnect/reconnectto his ISP or something 
similar but that would be rael stupid. I don't think that many people would 
actually attempt that.

I think that the person who would attempt this, if it's ever going to 
happen, it's because our user base has grown very, very large and his impact 
would be minimal to our system.


This is just an idea.. i'm sure there are better...



>- The server-side system will e-mail the user with a key, which must be
>   placed in the config file
>- To post the information to the server-side system, the client-side system
>   can use the proxy settings defined on /etc/make.conf
>- In the first set of data the server-side system receives, it will e-mail
>   a message to the user to let him know the system is running fine
>
>Note that it is not guaranteed the system will have internet connectivity
>when it gets run. In this case, it may keep periodically checking in the
>background for a route to the server.
>
>The following vars can be set on the config file:
>
>- Key: as discussed above
>- Acknowlege flag: send an e-mail to the user every time a set of data from
>   him is processed (defaults to false)
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