Feature #9174

Migrate our blueprints out of tails.git and tails.boum.org

Added by sajolida 2015-04-07 17:14:51 . Updated 2020-04-05 08:41:15 .

Status:
Confirmed
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Infrastructure
Target version:
Start date:
2015-04-07
Due date:
% Done:

14%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Sysadmin
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

We want to migrate our blueprints out of our main website and in their own ikiwiki. This will allow us to:

  • Be able to push more documents to our blueprints (images, office documents, etc.) without polluting our main repo.
  • Lock down all web editing on our main website.
  • Allow more people to push changes through Git.
  • Host our website on servers that we don’t trust to push to tails.git; ideally, N>1 servers to better resist DDoS (e.g. Tor’s pool of static webservers)

See https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2015-March/008517.html

Our main options are:

Benefits of using the GitLab wiki:

  • We can link to issues, MRs, commits, etc. using the GitLab link syntax
  • Links to issues and MRs are automatically annotated by GitLab with “(closed)”
  • We can manage access control with the same tools/workflow/policy as our other GitLab stuff
  • Arguably nicer user interface for editing pages
  • More powerful flavor of Markdown
  • Probably closer to what new contributors would expect / are used to

Benefits of using ikiwiki:

  • Historical contributors are used to it (whether they like it or not, is another matter, but at least they don’t have to learn anything new)
  • Content drafted on a blueprint can be seamlessly moved to our design doc (it does not rely on GitLab-specific syntax or features)

Subtasks

Feature #9175: Create a Git repo with only the history and content of /blueprint Resolved

100
Feature #9176: Remove /blueprint from our main repo Confirmed

0
Feature #9178: Create a master repo for blueprints.tails.boum.org Confirmed

0
Feature #9179: Propose an ikiwiki configuration for blueprints.tails.boum.org Confirmed

0
Feature #9180: Redirect all the links to tails.boum.org/blueprint to blueprints.tails.boum.org Confirmed

0
Feature #9181: Deploy blueprints.tails.boum.org Confirmed

0
Feature #9182: Document blueprints.tails.boum.org Confirmed

0

Related issues

Related to Tails - Feature #15878: Switch to GitLab In Progress 2018-08-30
Blocked by Tails - Feature #14588: Self-host our website Resolved 2018-10-03

History

#1 Updated by sajolida 2015-04-07 17:28:51

  • Description updated

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2015-04-20 07:23:46

  • Assignee set to sajolida

(My understanding is that sajolida will coordinate this project and ensure it’s lead to completion.)

#3 Updated by sajolida 2015-09-21 03:13:12

  • Assignee deleted (sajolida)

This project hasn’t moved in the last 3 months and is currently blocked by tais-sysadmins following up on “staging and blueprint”. I want to clear it from my view, so I’ll design this from me though I’d be happy to work on this again once the whole thing gets unblocked.

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2015-12-15 12:51:23

So apparently the current apparent blockers are:

  • Tails sysadmins’ availability to help design how the service could work;
  • stuff not happening at boum.org.

I don’t think it’s realistic to make plans based on the assumption that this situation will change any time soon. Sorry if I’ve personally contributed to create false hopes. Anyway, here we are, and based on this I suggest that people who want to lead this to completion and have time to do it themselves could stop blocking on it, and instead look into other hosting options for this ikiwiki, see Feature #9183#note-5.

Just my 2 cts :)

#5 Updated by sajolida 2015-12-16 04:49:52

  • Assignee set to sajolida

I’ll have a look.

#6 Updated by Anonymous 2018-01-19 15:16:48

  • QA Check set to Info Needed

Do we still want this @sajolida?

#7 Updated by intrigeri 2018-01-19 16:27:09

FWIW: I think it’ll be vastly easier to do that once we self-host our website, which is now on the roadmap.

#8 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-21 12:44:10

  • QA Check deleted (Info Needed)
  • Type of work changed from Sysadmin to Wait

Let’s say we’re waiting for Feature #14588, then :)

It would also allow us to completely lock our official website for edition and avoid having to deal with spam on it. We might still have to deal with spam on blueprints.tails.boum.org.

I already have proof-of-concept Git commands to rewrite the main Git repo to keep only blueprints (haven’t played with it in ~3 years):

    git remote | while read remote ; do git remote rm $remote ; done
    git branch | grep -v "\smaster" | while read branch ; do git branch -D $branch ; done
    git tag | while read tag ; do git tag -d $tag ; done
    git filter-branch --subdirectory-filter wiki/src/blueprint -- --all
    git update-ref -d refs/original/refs/heads/master
    git reflog expire --expire=now --all
    git gc --aggressive --prune=now

#9 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-21 12:44:29

#10 Updated by sajolida 2018-05-04 15:16:29

  • Assignee deleted (sajolida)

I don’t want to have this on my plate anymore.

#11 Updated by intrigeri 2019-01-21 10:01:00

  • Description updated
  • Type of work changed from Wait to Sysadmin

#12 Updated by intrigeri 2019-04-13 13:28:41

  • Subject changed from Migrate our blueprints to blueprints.tails.boum.org to Migrate our blueprints out of tails.git and tails.boum.org
  • Description updated

#13 Updated by intrigeri 2019-04-13 13:29:15

#14 Updated by intrigeri 2019-04-13 13:29:33

  • Description updated

#15 Updated by intrigeri 2019-04-13 13:31:29

  • Description updated

#16 Updated by intrigeri 2020-04-05 08:41:15

  • Description updated

(Dump a few pros/cons for “dedicated ikiwiki” vs. “GitLab wiki”.)