Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

I don't think HW is the problem as my 6 year old laptop
is fine for all usual tasks I need (web browsing, reading
email, office, cd-dvd burning and so on). So i suspect that
when my N900 will be 6 years old (unless the usb port breaks earlier)
it will still be fine for doing the tasks I expect.
There will always be a newer shinier better super phone
around the corner but it doesn't mean that I have to buy them all.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

All this Meego Cordia stuff is not production ready on the N900.
Important for is to find a way to be able to get security
updates from debian armel and fixes / improvements
from the maemo community. A first step would be
the remove all unneeded closed stuff and replace
it with good open alternatives, the next step
to see how debian armel repositories could be
added without breaking the remaining closed
stuff to get updates and security fixes for the base system.
The latter step probably involves a lot work of dependency checking and deb control files tweaking so very competent
people is needed, surely more experienced than me.
Nonetheless I'm happy to do the testing if needed.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

So.... it is becoming more of a question of why rather than how :D

As regards to the how...

Bandwidth - I am about 8 months away from upgrading my broadband (waiting for a Sky contract to end). My next provider will be Virgin, who offer 100Mbps connection. Now I know its still "upto" but if you take a look at their actual speeds Vs advertised they are about the same. The upload is 5Mbps for the 50Mbps broadband, so I guess you'd get in the range of 6-8Mbps upload for the 100Mbps package. BTW: their average customer speed for 50Mbps package is 49.84Mbps :D nice! There is also nothing in the T&Cs as regards to caps or connections, so hosting a mirror shouldn't be an issue.

Hardware - Space is not an issue, as I am currently upgrading my storage to a 4-bay NAS (with 4 x 3TB Seagates), overkill I know, but I collect digital media like its going out of fashion! So I have 4 x 1 TB old WD HDDs kicking about, which can be easily fitted to an old machine to use as a server, also if we only need 1 TB storage, I could do a nice bit of RAID for better backup/stability.

What sort of spec machine makes a good mirror, I guess HDD read/write speeds and a decent (gigabit) connection are the most important, but what about CPU/memory etc.

Security - Again, I am waiting to get the Virgin broadband before upgrading my router, which will help with the security I guess, but I am a little bit concerned about opening ports etc. Is there anyway of setting up private/public areas within the home, I mean easily and cheaply. I am sure Cisco could come in and sort it out, but I don't have that much spare cash :D

Other - Is it just a mirror that the community wants/needs/would be nice or would other services be useful. I mean if you are going through the trouble of setting up a server "for community use" is it just being a repo the best use for it?

To be honest, even if the Maemo/MeeGo/Community doesn't need/want a host then I may do this anyway as a little project and maybe turn it into a Debian mirror. It would be a good learning curve, especially as my Linux knowledge is seriously lacking :)

As regards to the why......

I think your right, is Maemo a dead-end, or can/will it be ported to other devices and/or emerge as a better alternative "open-source" OS than MeeGo/Others???

I'm not going to comment either way, but if all the official support goes (including repos etc - which I could actually see Elop doing) then it definatly won't have a chance. Even if it is only the die-hard left (like N8x0 et al) at least they will have somewhere to continue developing and using the devices :)

Personally I would prefer to spend time/money/effort on supporting the few rather than the many :D

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

I usually close all ports on the modem/router and forward only the needed ones to the server, this somewhat insulates the rest of your home network.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

I guess it depends on what router I get, it may have some other advanced options other than port forwarding. To be honest I wanted to avoid it completely, as it isnt exactly secure. Are there any other methods to maintain and web server and private home network from the same router?

Well I might start looking into putting the server together some time this week, as was mentioned before, if its only being tested and not used properly then bandwidth shouldnt be an issue.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

i had a look at the SS4000E config from Intal that farmatito mentioned earlier. if you can install a Linux / GNU distro on it as well, you can make the NAS also your home's firewall.
this forfeits any routing capabilities of your cable or ADSL MoDem, but the result is a much greater security.
an Ethernet cable goes from your cable / ADSL MoDem to the NAS
the firewall function lets the general traffic (indeed, fairly unchallenged) access the repositories and allows the proper traffic (your web browsing, chats, voip, and whatever) access a router thru a 2nd Ethernet connection / card.

i remember a company i worked at once which was using an NT4 machine as a firewall. because it was an old box (not much CPU or RAM needed, indeed) and they couldn't find a matching Ethernet adapter any more, they simply assigned both IP addresses to the same card :mad: ¦:-{
the downside is that you only have one mac address, thus if a hacker knows that... (or simply tries it...)

if you download torrents, you may also want to leave that on the NAS, btw...

EDIT: of course, if your cable or ADSL MoDem has router capabilities, you can still use whatever built-in security features it has to protect the NAS :)

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

will be back in about a week.
a little earlier if it is purely time management issue, a little longer if i get banned from the site again...

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Can't believe I missed this thread...

Cheers guys for doing all this. I tried to put these points forward before:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=73284
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1018617

...but didn't really get any buy-in.

So it's awesome that you've done this. I'd love to help as I have a meaty server sitting largely idle...but disk space is an issue and I'm out of work ATM...so won't be upgrading for the time being :(

I'm also a Debian aficionado, so can help in that regard if need be.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Glad to see others are interested in this too! :)

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Would setting the new server to be on the DMZ be an option?

I did this with my Xbox at one point when I was having trouble with multi-player - and basically assigning a static IP to the Xbox and then assigning that specific IP to be the DMZ server on my router allowed ALL traffic to and from the Xbox without any firewall at all.

Now as far as I, personally, would be concerned this wouldn't be an issue, as there would be a clean install of a Linux distro on the server and the only data would be community related.

However if people (end up) relying on mirrors etc allowing all traffic to the server puts it at risk of being tampered with, which wouldn't affect me personally, but may affect others, if you see what I mean.

I guess my question is, is assigning a community type web/repo server to DMZ secure enough?? In fact is assigning DMZ to any mirror, Debian etc, secure enough?

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

this would indeed be a DMZ.
and using either a vsftpd or https you can set quite a bit of security even in a DMZ.
and it is not like you allow visitors to do anything but to download stuff.
even apt should be able to live with that.
but as i said, i'm zypper guy, thus can't make any promise regarding apt.
only a rsync script is allowed to update the contend in normal operations, respectively if you host the primary repository, you can do updates from your "private" LAN only, connecting to the SAN.

EDIT: apologies, i neglected that you were replying to farmatito.
the solution i described in my previous posts is indeed a DMZ (the SAN, thus).

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

I see, sorry I missed that SAN post.

Ok well if DMZ is fine for the server, then thats makes the private vs public issues go away :) And also SO much easier to set up!

Ok well I am going to have a go at putting the server together today - I'm just starting out with an old 750GB drive from an external hard-drive - as I am still using the other drives (getting data off them).

Does anyone know, can you sync from one repo (as in sync with the debian armel) as well as syncing with other repos as well as adding you own packages etc

Also what is the best way to handle the new replacement open-source packages for the closed packages? Put them in a different sub catalog rather than in the main repo? If they are together in the same repo then are there conflicts?

For give me if that makes no sense but as I said my knowledge is lacking a bit.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

You can change color of line using:
See wiki page

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

back :)
& looks like i'm still able to log in & post a reply :cool:

great :)
hope the set up is going okay; not familiar with SAN config myself, thus don't know in how far it is possible to simply replace one HD with another. if the OS is installed on it, obviously you'd have to image it & clone it on the replacement HD.

important questions, indeed, but of technical nature.
came across a post on the council thread about... "creating and / or managing distributions..." which ends up @ Why MeeGo - Cordia, what's lack in Maemo

there seems to be a number of projects busy with making an open source OS available based on Maemo or MeeGo.

question is: do we want (and do we have the developer skills) to add another one?
only scratched a couple of them, still would like to check out what's being talked about (and what the issues may be) before (possibly) formulating a vision for an open sourced version of Maemo...

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

If this creates a <6 GB repository - would it be possible to download to MyDocs on the N900 and then install all applications locally? Sort of like the apt-on-cd thing.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

i tried this today.
doesn't work on /home/user/Mydocs because the /etc/fstab entry for it includes a noexec option which means

• (for sure) the scripts won't run
• /etc/fstab gets regenerated @ each boot, thus
  • one has to overwrite it after every boot :mad:
  • unmount & remount /dev/mmcblk0p1 :(
• (not sure) dpkg / apt-get / HAM / FAMwork properly from vfat / with noexec

as i have a test N900 with a 8GB mSDHC card, i formated that ext3.

furthermore i modified Pali's download.sh to download_armel.sh
in order to get only the files needed for runtime on the N900

i tested this on the N900 & got 2.2 GB downloaded (in /media/mmc1/src/maemo) :)

next, i used the sources.list files from HAM with all the repositories i know about for the download.

sources_armel.list
download_armel.sh
i'm currently doing an update of an earlier download (armel, i386 & sources (freemantle PR1.3 only) with extras, extras-dev and extras-testing for armel. this will be a pretty useless directory structure but it confirmed that the scripts handle other repositories as well.

based on that Debian Repository HOWTO (Obsolete Documentation) i still need to figure out how to

• structure the directories (possibly by making copies of download.sh in different sub-directories)
• update sources.list in such a way that one can easily pick between freemantle, extra & (possibly) CSSU when doing a local install (with HAM / FAM)

as alluded above, still need to get the CSSU repositories & see how the download goes.

Pali's scripts run like (swiss) clockwork & so far took everything i threw @ them ;)

• deleted a package & let the script run again => downloaded only the missing package
• messing around with sources.list & architectures

@Pali

1st of all, thank you very much for those scripts :o

2nd would you mind if i upload

• one or a set of modified download.sh (with corresponding sources.list)
• a sources.list for local use

?

it is definitely not in a developer spirit but solely for (dumb :p) end-users :D
it may also be a life saver of sort for those ppl who don't have a Linux / GNU machine but only windooooz :eek:; they can still use the scripts on the N900 (with less space requirements) & getting a real local repository... everywhere you go you always take the weather with you, right?
aaaa, repository, of course ¦-)

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

@pali

I am currently mirroring official repositories for N800/N810 using apt-mirror.

Can you tell me if there are any benefits in using your scripts instead?

Thank you.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

My mirroring solution is small shell script, no big monstrum. Of cource apt-mirror is better for this, but apt-mirror has problem with downloads.maemo.nokia.com (does not support https + auth-no-challenge).

And my package contains scripts which generate list of free, non-free and lang package. This apt-mirror does not support. These scripts was used to generatae wiki page http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_closed_packages

---

If somebody has good looking patch for https support (with auth-no-challenge support) in apt-mirror please sent it to upstream :-)

---

@momcilo:
Is your mirror server public?

@misterc:
You can publish your modified version. No problem. Scripts are licensed under GPL v3. I used scripts only for local dump and for generating wiki page. So all what I needed I have :-) I will not touch my scripts anymore, so if you want, you can create gitorious/garage/launchpad/... project and everyone can working on it.

---

What would be nice: if somebody who has server can mirror repositores. One day Nokia will stop Maemo apt repositories.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

No it is the personal copy as a part of doomsday preparations. I am mirroring armel and sources, i386 follows.
I plan to update it once a week. I am still wating to see what would the future actions of Council on that matter.

I've wrote a script that generates mirror.list from .install downloaded from: http://www.gronmayer.com/it/

Btw: You have checked with the apt-mirror from the latest sources? I will try it as well.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

just wondering;
started the download of all NOKIA and extras repositories about 20 hrs ago
(limited to 5 Mbps, which is the primary limiting factor)
so far, only with extras and extras-dev (only for binary-all and binary-armel) i'm nearly @ 30 GB :eek:

are the community repositories going to remain available after 31st of Dec 2012 18:25 (which TZ, btw?) or will they go down as well and need thus to be backed up as well?

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

We need to backup also firmware FIASCO images (it contains NOLO bootloader and cold-flashing)

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Maemo is maintained by contractor.
As for firmware, I think you would need permission to host it.
Check the ask the council thread, there is a link to discussin between sd69 and X fade

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

you mean on top of extras, extras-dev & extras-testing?

the FIASCO images would be
RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin
RX-51_2009SE_20.2010.36-2.002_PR_COMBINED_002_ARM.bin
for all regions?

only the Latest ones as we only replicate Fremantle 1.3 repositories, right?

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Yes, if we do not want older version and only PR 1.3.
I think that all tools&packages from http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/ for n900 should be also dumped.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Pali,

i'm running in some trouble with the packages files for the extras repositories.
even though i only select binary_armel i still get binary_i386 and sources for about a 1000 packages;
the binary_i386 wouldn't be such a problem, but for extras alone the source tar balls amount to over 75% of the size;
not sure yet how it is w/ -testing & -dev, but i guess it should be about the same proportion
the whole download binary_all & binary_armel (for NOKIA's repos, extras, cssu & amsn) amounts to 58GB.

(on NOKIA's repos, the package are properly defined & selecting binary_armel only downloads the armel.deb packages
thus your scripts work perfectly :cool:)

no way this would fit on a N900, but even on a reasonably large PC (1TB storage?) it's... difficult to hide @ least :D
with the whole binary_i386 & sources i guesstimate 120 to (@ most 150) GBs :confused:

now to my point(s).
considering that 'til 31-Dec-2012 the repository should remain available online, does it make sense to download the development packages for past that date?
will the N900 / Maemo still be a valid development environment in 2013?
i hope that my N900s will still run by then (knock knock) (my N95 still runs fine after 4 1/2 yrs...) thus having the armel runtime packages would make sense.

i suspect that in extras some developers didn't bother specifying the architecture of each package, thus the architecture isn't cutting it :mad:
i was thinking of modify your script(s) to (simply?) look for the ending of the file name.
i hope to get the size of the download to some 20GB this way.

do you see any problems reflashing a N900 & reloading all the packages (either with default backup in HAM or with FAM's application slist)?

very optimistically, assuming a MeeGo handset gets so far that it is possible to run on the N900 as primary device (:o) would the Maemo sources be needed?
the only reason i would see is to have some Qt (4?) apps that could be recompiled against a MeeGo SDK environment, considering that the 2013 apps on MeeGo (if it still exists....) will be designed for devices with much more then the N900's 256MB RAM.

am i missing something?

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

my script first try to determinate package architecture repositories from Release file. If Release file is not found, then is used hardcoded architecture list in download script.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Note that the hosting of firmware images for Maemo devices and other Nokia binaries is still maintained by Nokia under various nokia.com subdomains. Their fate is quite separate to anything hosted under maemo.org, but we still don't have a definitive statement on their continued availability.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Council should ask for that. In either case, I've nearly finished mirroring N8x0 repositories (diablo + chinook). I will retain it as private copy. Same applies for the firmware and SDKs.

Once I resolve the issue I have with chinook sources and apt-mirror, I'll post the mirror.list configuration.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

@pali, which repository did not work with apt-mirror?

Perl is not my stronger point, but I would like to take a look.

EDIT:

I guess that could be this could be one of them:

deb https://downloads.maemo.nokia.com/fremantle ssu apps

Can you tell me what is used as username/password?

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

for downloads.maemo.nokia.com you need:
* send Basic HTTP authentication information (--auth-no-challenge for wget)
* with login qa9recEP and password Pat2UGuP

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

wget --auth-no-challenge --http-user=qa9recpEP --http-password=Pat2UGuP https://downloads.maemo.nokia.com/fremantle/ssu/apps/

It does not work

Edit: I'll try with specific file

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Thanks, I did not expect flat repository.

Will try later. Thank you.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

@pali

I made a quick test with apt-mirror + --auth-no-challenge option added to wget, and it works.

I have to test/modify it and submit the (trivial) patch upstream.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

I made my own https patch for apt-mirror to support auth-no-challenge and no-check-certificate. Patch is based on version 0.4.8-3ubuntu1 from ubuntu natty. Here is apt-mirror patch and mirror.list file for all maemo 5 fremantle repositories:

apt-mirror-https.patch
mirror.list

Happy downloading and backuping :)

EDIT:
patch attached to relevant ubuntu bug
mirror.list moved to wiki

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

After backup I unpacked all closed/non-free deb packages and I found out that some of them has GPL/LGPL license written in /usr/share/<package>/copyright. All these packages are now red on wiki http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_closed_packages

So what to do now?

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Naughty naughty, doesn't the code HAVE to be included if it is under GPL/LGPL???

What was the complete size of backup out of interest, still haven't got round to doing this yet but hope to very soon :)

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Yes, of course.

I reported first bugs:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11715#c3
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12388

But there are more packages with (L)GPL licenses without source code (see wiki).

downloads.maemo.nokia.com (mr0+apps) 280M
repository.maemo.org (SDK+tools+nokia-binaries) 5,8G

Ovi, Extras, Extras-devel, Extras-testing and Community SSU I do not have backuped.

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

I've looked at the patch, good thing you've added it to configuration file.

Currently the setting is global. I am concerned that it may conflict with other deb lines that don't need it.

Have you posted your patch upstream?

BTW: I had an issue with apt-mirror while backing up chinook repositories. One single package (pygtkeditor) did include extra empty line in "Files" section, I had to add one-liner to skip the line if separation result is of length 0 (around line 474, 3 is expected).

Re: Future of Maemo 5 Fremantle
 

Next bug about osso-backup reported here:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12415

For my apt-mirror patch: Added option only change behaviour of https transports. And old version of wget had these options enabled by default. So if apt-mirror worked fine with old version of wget, it should work with new + my patches.