Re: [gentoo-soc] GSoC 2013: Log collector

[Diego Elio Pettenò]

Hi Antanas,

First of all, thanks to showing your interest in this project. I'll be
the assigned mentor for the project if you're going to be working on
it.

To answer your concerns (in quite an unsorted fashion, I apologize), I
would start with saying that what we're looking for with this project
is to have not just an average log collector, but one that is
integrated explicitly with components such as Portage and Bugzilla;
the target of this project, for me, is to be able to use it for the
tinderboxes I've been running (which are currently on-hold because I'm
too busy with training at a new job).

While I'm not discounting *any* particular technology right away,
we're looking for something that works quickly and relatively
easily... sometimes while technology is already out there that could
work, it doesn't suit the workflow as it is right now. At the same
time, for what I'm concerned you can start by keeping the use of
Amazon's AWS services, if it helps you. The end goal is to avoid using
it, but there is no hurry with that, as the costs associated with it
are very marginal right now. The only important part here is that the
data you store on AWS is not persistent when using the final
collector.

I don't have any problem with "wasting" the 10 days — but this does
not give any "get out of trouble free" card for the evaluation, so
keep it in mind, you might have to do some harder work in the first
few days. But that does not say much, some people actually performs
better under pressure, so it's up to you if you want to go for it or
not :)

If there is anything else you want to know, feel free to ask on the
mailing list and I'll answer ASAP.

Thanks,
Diego

Diego Elio Pettenò — Flameeyes
flameeyes@×××××××××.eu — http://blog.flameeyes.eu/


On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 2:19 AM, Antanas Uršulis
<antanas.ursulis@×××××.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm a final year Computer Science undergraduate at the University of
> Cambridge (UK). My main languages are C and C++, but my bachelor's project
> involves working with and modifying the CIEL task-parallel execution system
> written in Python, and I have also been using Python for my scripting needs.
> I have been a Gentoo user since 2009 (switched from *buntu), if I can
> remember correctly.
>
> I am interested in the "Log collector/analyzer for tinderbox" GSoC project,
> not only because I would like to help the developers of my favourite Linux
> distribution, but I could also see myself using an extension of the tool to
> oversee my own systems (for example, computers at the Lithuanian National
> Olympiad in Informatics, where I am a member of the technical staff).
>
> Of course, there are some things I would like to discuss. Firstly, are there
> already any thoughts on a replacement for Amazon's SimpleDB storage? I would
> see that as a major part of the project. Second, if I were to think of this
> as a more general tool, with the possibility to support various log
> providers (portage, apache, etc.) and analyzers in the future, what would
> your opinion be on that? I think it would be possible to implement this
> without any external dependencies, so that Portage remains light. Third,
> after a quick search, I came upon the question: is there a reason not to
> hook into systems such as Apache Flume + Elastic Search, or logstash, or
> Scribe?
>
> Lastly, I would like to know up-front whether you would be OK with me only
> being to able to fully focus on the project from the 7th June - I have exams
> until then and cannot devote my time to this. That is 10 calendar days lost
> from the "Students get to know mentors, read documentation, get up to speed
> to begin working on their projects." phase.
>
> I'm happy to provide more background about myself and hope to hear from you!
>
> Regards,
> Antanas Uršulis