Fedora Weekly News 283

[Pascal Calarco]

* 1 Fedora Weekly News Issue 283
          o 1.1 Announcements
                + 1.1.1 Fedora Announcements
                      # 1.1.1.1 Outage: Server reboots - 2011-08-01 14:00 UTC
                            * 1.1.1.1.1 Affected Services:
                            * 1.1.1.1.2 Unaffected Services:
                            * 1.1.1.1.3 Contact Information:
                      # 1.1.1.2 Fedora 15 for IBM System z 64bit official release
                + 1.1.2 Fedora Development News
                      # 1.1.2.1 evolution-data-server soname version bump for
rawhide/Fedora 16 next week
                      # 1.1.2.2 Fedora 16 Alpha to slip by one week
                            * 1.1.2.2.1 ===============================
                            * 1.1.2.2.2 ===============================
                      # 1.1.2.3 New hardened build support (coming) in F16
                      # 1.1.2.4 Fedora 16 Alpha Go/No-Go Meeting, Wednesday, August 10 @
17:00 EDT
                      # 1.1.2.5 FUDCon EMEA travel subsidies are open
                      # 1.1.2.6 String Freeze 2011-08-02
                      # 1.1.2.7 Changes to the Packaging Guidelines
                + 1.1.3 Fedora Events
                      # 1.1.3.1 Upcoming Events (June - August 2011)
                      # 1.1.3.2 Past Events
                      # 1.1.3.3 Additional information
          o 1.2 QualityAssurance
                + 1.2.1 Test Days
                + 1.2.2 Fedora 16 Alpha preparation
                + 1.2.3 oVirt node spin review and testing
                + 1.2.4 QA group meeting SOP
                + 1.2.5 Separation of release validation and feature processes
                + 1.2.6 Fedora 16 Alpha RATs run
                + 1.2.7 Instalatron anaconda testing framework
                + 1.2.8 Release criteria updates
                + 1.2.9 Release criteria and validation testing
                + 1.2.10 Acceptance testing SOP
                + 1.2.11 Security testing scripts
                + 1.2.12 AutoQA
          o 1.3 Security Advisories
                + 1.3.1 Fedora 15 Security Advisories
                + 1.3.2 Fedora 14 Security Advisories
          o 1.4 Planet Fedora
                + 1.4.1 Events
                      # 1.4.1.1 FLOSSCamp 2011
                      # 1.4.1.2 FUDCon India
                + 1.4.2 Fedora Community
                + 1.4.3 General

- Fedora Weekly News Issue 283 -

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 283[1] for the week ending August 11, 2011. What
follows are some highlights from this issue.

FWN is back after a few weeks of summer quietude, and we've got several weeks'
worth of Fedora coverage for you! Kicking off this week's issue, announcements from
the Fedora Project, including awesome heavy metal news on a Fedora 15 release for IBM
System z 64bit, details on the Fedora 16 alpha schedule and decisioning, and exciting
details on hardened build support coming in Fedora 16. In QA news, details on the latest
Fedora 15 Amazon EC2 Test Day, and a schedule for upcoming test days. Also more detail on
Fedora 16 Alpha prep, oVirt node spin review and testing, and Instalatron anaconda testing
framework details, to name but a few items. Security Advisories brings us a surprisingly
short list of security-related software releases for the past three weeks, and our issue
wraps up with news from the Planet Fedora, including FLOSSCamp 2011 and FUDCon India event
reports, farewell news from Max Spevack, and updates from Máirín Duffy and Joerg Simon.
Enjoy FWN 283!

An audio version of some issues of FWN - FAWN - are available! You can listen to existing
issues[2] on the Internet Archive. If anyone is interested in helping spread the load of
FAWN production, please contact us!

If you are interested in contributing to Fedora Weekly News, please see our 'join'
page[3]. We welcome reader feedback:
[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>

FWN Editorial Team: Pascal Calarco, Adam Williamson

   1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue283
   2. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22FWN%22
   3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join

-- Announcements --

In this section, we cover announcements from the Fedora Project, including general
announcements[1], development announcements[2] and Events[3].

Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/
   2. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/
   3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events

-- Fedora Announcements --

--- Outage: Server reboots - 2011-08-01 14:00 UTC ---

Kevin Fenzi announced[1]:

"There will be an outage starting at 2011-08-01 14:00 UTC, which will last
approximately 2 hours.

To convert UTC to your local time, take a look at[2] or run:

date -d '2011-08-01 14:00 UTC'

Reason for outage:

A number of servers are being upgraded and must be rebooted. Where possible, services
should continue to be available during this outage, but users and maintainers may see
short periods of instability or interruptions in some services.
Affected Services:

    * Bodhi - https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/
    * Buildsystem - http://koji.fedoraproject.org/
    * Docs - http://docs.fedoraproject.org/
    * Email system
    * Fedora Account System - https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/
    * Fedora Community - https://admin.fedoraproject.org/community/
    * Fedora Hosted - https://fedorahosted.org/
    * Fedora People - http://fedorapeople.org/
    * Main Website - http://fedoraproject.org/
    * Package Database - https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/
    * Smolt - http://smolts.org/
    * Spins - http://spins.fedoraproject.org/
    * Start - http://start.fedoraproject.org/
    * Torrent - http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/
    * Wiki - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/

Unaffected Services:

    * BFO - http://boot.fedoraproject.org/
    * GIT / Source Control
    * DNS - ns1.fedoraproject.org, ns2.fedoraproject.org
    * Fedora Insight - https://insight.fedoraproject.org/
    * Mirror List - https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/
    * Mirror Manager - https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mirrormanager/

Ticket Link: https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/2900
Contact Information:

Please join #fedora-admin in irc.freenode.net or add comments to the ticket for this
outage above."

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2011-July/002988.html
   2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/UTCHowto

--- Fedora 15 for IBM System z 64bit official release ---

Dan Horák announced[1]:

"It's been a longer time since the Fedora 15 release for the primary
architectures than we expected, but here we are.

As today, the Fedora IBM System z (s390x) Secondary Arch team proudly presents the Fedora
15 for IBM System z 64bit official release!

And without further ado, here the links to the actual release:

http://secondary.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/15/Fedor...

http://secondary.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/15/Every...

and obviously on all mirrors that mirror the secondary arch content.

The first directory contains the normal installation trees as well as one DVD ISO with the
complete release.

Everything as usual contains, well, everything. :)

For Fedora 14 we have collected a couple of example config files, kickstart examples and a
nice README here[2]

beware that currently the content there is outdated, but most of the information should be
still valid. We're working on fixing that over the next weeks.

Additional information about know issues, the current progress and state for future
release, where and how the team can be reached and just anything else IBM System z on
Fedora related can be found here[3] for architecture specific release notes and here[4]
for more general s390x notes.

Thanks go out to everyone involved in making this happen!

Your Fedora/s390x Maintainers

-- Dan Horák, RHCE Senior Software Engineer, BaseOS

Red Hat Czech s.r.o., Purkyňova 99, 612 45 Brno"

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2011-July/002987.html
   2. http://secondary.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/spins/S390/
   3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/s390x/15
   4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/s390x

--- Fedora Development News ---

The Development Announcement[1] list is intended to be a LOW TRAFFIC announce-only list
for Fedora development.

Acceptable Types of Announcements

    * Policy or process changes that affect developers.
    * Infrastructure changes that affect developers.
    * Tools changes that affect developers.
    * Schedule changes
    * Freeze reminders

Unacceptable Types of Announcements

    * Periodic automated reports (violates the INFREQUENT rule)
    * Discussion
    * Anything else not mentioned above

   1. https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel-announce

--- evolution-data-server soname version bump for rawhide/Fedora 16 next week ---

Milan Crha announced[1]:

"Hi,

I just want to let you know that evolution-data-server 3.1.5 release, which is about to
happen the next week, on August 15th, +/-, changes soname versions for almost everything
it provides, namely libedataserver, libecal, libedatacal, libebook, libedatabook.

Anything depending on it would be rebuild on both branches against newer eds, when its
update will be done. I will rebuild all to which I have commit rights by the end of the
week, after the release.

Bye,

Milan"

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-August/00082...

--- Fedora 16 Alpha to slip by one week ---

Robyn Bergeron announced[1]:

"Today at the Go/No-Go meeting it was decided to slip the Alpha by one week[1].
Minutes follow below.

There are numerous unresolved blocker bugs at this time[2], requiring the creation of an
RC4 once these blockers are resolved.

As a result, ALL MAJOR MILESTONES, and their dependent tasks, will be pushed out by one
week.

We will proceed with having the F16 Alpha readiness meeting tomorrow, 2011-08-11, as
previously announced on the Logistics mailing list. We will have another F16 Alpha Blocker
Bug meeting this Friday.

The adjustments to the F16 schedule will be done (very late) tonight, and published to the
Schedule wiki page[3].

Thanks for your patience. We will be meeting again next Wednesday for another Go/No-Go
meeting.

-Robyn

[1] Logs:
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2011-08-10/f16_alpha_gono...

    Minutes:

http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2011-08-10/f16_alpha_gono...

[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Current_Release_Blockers

[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/16/Schedule


===============================

   1. fedora-meeting: F16 Alpha Go/No-Go Meeting

===============================

Meeting started by rbergeron at 21:00:26 UTC. The full logs are available at
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2011-08-10/f16_alpha_gono...


Meeting summary

    * present: spot, codeblock, dgilmore, pjones, athmane, cebbert,

  jsmith-mobile, adamw  (rbergeron, 21:03:42)

    * Go/No-Go Meeting (rbergeron, 21:04:07)

  * the Purpose of the Go/No-Go is to gather yay/nay's from Release
    Engineering, QA, and devel on whether or not what we have put
    together is ready for release and meets the release criteria.
    (rbergeron, 21:05:28)
  * LINK: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Go_No_Go_Meeting   (adamw,
    21:06:17)
  * LINK: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Current_Release_Blockers <--
    that one I know by heart, though.  (rbergeron, 21:06:42)

    * Proposed Blockers (rbergeron, 21:09:50)

  * LINK: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729563
    (rbergeron, 21:10:04)
  * clumens has an updates image (linked in BZ) for people to try out.
    (rbergeron, 21:12:33)
  * AGREED: : #729563, NTH Alpha, consider adding criterion for selinux
    must be enabled by default later.  (rbergeron, 21:14:39)

    * http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729500 (rbergeron,

  21:15:04)
  * Error while installing updates on Fedora 16 Alpha RC3  (rbergeron,
    21:15:20)
  * AGREED: revisit #729563 at Blocker meeting friday, try to get more
    testers. PLEASE TEST THIS ONE AND TRY TO DUPLICATE, FOLKS!
    (rbergeron, 21:17:34)

    * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729528 (rbergeron,

  21:17:53)
  * #729528 - Unable to configure events in reporter to forward in
    anaconda for F-16-Alpha-RC3  (rbergeron, 21:18:09)
  * AGREED: #729528 Alpha Blocker, per criterion of installer must be
    able to report failures to BZ, wiht appropriate info included.
    (rbergeron, 21:22:19)

    * http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729537 (rbergeron,

  21:22:53)
  * 729537 - Anaconda cannot report crashes in text mode in F16 Alpha
    RC3 due to missing report-cli  (rbergeron, 21:23:14)
  * AGREED: 729537 Alpha Blocker, per criterion of installer must be
    able to report failures to BZ, with appropriate info included.
    (rbergeron, 21:25:32)

    * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=728707 (rbergeron,

  21:25:48)
  * 728707 - on package upgrade RPM is removing empty directories
    accidentally  (rbergeron, 21:26:02)
  * AGREED: 728707 is a blocker under 'must be able to install updates'
    criterion - this constitutes not installing updates properly
    (adamw, 21:33:36)

    * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729600 (adamw, 21:37:37)

  * LINK:


http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/15/html/Installation_Guide/Mak...

    (jlk, 21:47:30)
  * AGREED: 729600 not blocker or nth, installing from a dd'ed DVD iso
    is expected to require extra configuration. documentation should be
    improved to outline the steps required  (adamw, 21:56:27)

    * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=728863 (adamw, 21:57:30)

    * go/no-go vote (adamw, 22:00:30)

  * AGREED: Fedora 16 Alpha is no-go at this time  (adamw, 22:01:32)
  * ACTION: rbergeron will take care of updating the schedules  (adamw,
    22:02:04)

    * open floor (adamw, 22:03:40)

Meeting ended at 22:05:08 UTC.

Action Items

    * rbergeron will take care of updating the schedules

Action Items, by person

    * rbergeron

  * rbergeron will take care of updating the schedules

    * **UNASSIGNED**

  * (none)


People Present (lines said)

    * adamw (167)
    * rbergeron (73)
    * pjones (66)
    * jlk (49)
    * dgilmore (36)
    * Viking_Alpha (35)
    * tflink (32)
    * clumens (22)
    * nirik (20)
    * zodbot (6)
    * spot (4)
    * cebbert (3)
    * athmane (2)
    * CodeBlock (2)
    * jsmith-mobile (1)
    * tk009 (1)
    * cwickert (1)
    * jsmith (1)

Generated by `MeetBot`_ 0.1.4

.. _`MeetBot`: http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot"

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-August/00082...

--- New hardened build support (coming) in F16 ---

Adam Jackson announced[1]:

"tl;dr version: If you have a security-sensitive package, and wish to enable some
gcc-level hardening features with a modest performance impact, you will soon be able to
enable them (nearly) automagically by rebuilding with this line in your spec file:

%define _hardened_build 1

Now for the details.

    * 1: what are we trying to do?

There are three somewhat-overlapping build features in play here. The first one is called
"relro", which instructs the linker to emit some relocations in a special
segment that can be marked read-only after relocation processing is finished but before
you call into main(). Or in English: more things that you've asked to be const, will
actually be const. This on its own is quite cheap, and so it has been enabled globally as
of redhat-rpm-config-9.1.0-13.fc16.

By default, not all symbols are resolved that early in program execution. In particular,
functions are resolved lazily the first time they're called. This makes startup
faster, and since not all functions are actually called in typical program execution,
usually makes total execution time faster. However, if all symbols were resolved early,
the relro feature could do a better job, and virtually all relocations could be made
read-only. The '-z now' flag to the linker makes this happen, and an app so linked
is said to be "Full RELRO" instead of "Partial RELRO".

Finally, applications may be built as position-independent executables, by passing -fPIC
or -fPIE at build time and -pie at link time. This allows the runtime linker to randomize
the placement of the executable at runtime, which makes it more difficult for an attacker
to guess the address of writeable memory.

    * 2: how do we go about doing it?

The non-PIE parts of this are trivial, just pass the appropriate flags to the linker and
you're done. PIE is more difficult, both at build time and at link time. Although both
-fPIC and -fPIE produce position-independent code at the assembly level, -fPIE will (at
least on amd64) produce relocation types that are only valid in an executable. This means
you can't just say -fPIE in CFLAGS: your libraries will fail to link. (PIC objects in
a PIE executable are fine; PIE objects in a PIC library are not. When in doubt, -fPIC.)

Likewise, at link time, the -pie and -shared options are mutually exclusive. ld.gold will
simply refuse to execute if you specify both. ld.bfd will (afaict) let whichever one comes
last win, and if that happens to be -pie when you're building a shared library it will
fail to link because it won't be able to find a _start symbol.

All of this is only an issue because most build systems don't let you say different
CFLAGS or LDFLAGS for shared libraries and executables. Sigh.

So instead, we'll teach gcc to figure it out. To do this we'll use the -specs flag
to pass some rewrite rules to the compiler driver. At compile time, if we don't see
-fPIC or -fPIE on the command line, we'll add -fPIC. At link time, if we don't see
-shared, we'll add -pie. This way we build relocatable objects that are always
suitable for either type of final link object, and we'll only attempt to build a PIE
if we know we're not building a shared library. Victory!

    * 3: what does this mean for you?

The link-time bit of the last paragraph required a bit of gcc magic to get right
(previously specs rules could only add strings to the command line of the program to
invoke; they could not rewrite gcc's notion of which flags had been passed in the
first place). Thanks to a patch from Jakub Jelinek, this is now fixed in gcc-4.6.1-7.fc16,
and will be in gcc 4.7 and later. As a result, %defined _hardened_build 1 will not work
until that gcc update has gone through.

Once that's done (and redhat-rpm-config-9.1.0-15.fc16 has been gone through updates),
if you're using a %configure-style spec file, defining the magic macro is all you have
to do. The rpm macros will notice the macro, and put the right magic into CFLAGS and
LDFLAGS, and everything is great and wonderful.

If you're _not_ using %configure, then you have to do whatever is conventional for
your build system to get CFLAGS and LDFLAGS inherited properly. For CFLAGS, this will be
$RPM_OPT_FLAGS or %{optflags} as before. As of rpm-4.9.1-3.fc16, you will be able to say
$RPM_LD_FLAGS for the corresponding LDFLAGS values. Until then, there is no such shell
variable, but you can get the same effect from %{?__global_ldflags}. Yes, that's ugly,
sorry.

If you are the owner of one of the packages listed here[2]

Then I have locally built (though not extensively tested) your package with the
appropriate specfile modifications, and the results do indeed appear to be fully hardened.
If you would like to handle the rebuilds yourself, please let me know. Otherwise I will
submit them myself once the relevant updates have gone through.

If you've made it to the end, congratulations. Please let me know if there are any
issues, or any questions I can answer. In particular if the performance impact of these
flags is excessive for you, there are some ways it can be mitigated that are out of scope
for this particular email.

- ajax


   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-August/00082...
   2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Kevin/DRAFT_When_to_use_PIE_compiler_...

--- Fedora 16 Alpha Go/No-Go Meeting, Wednesday, August 10 @ 17:00 EDT ---

Bobyn Bergeron announced[1]:

"Join us on irc.freenode.net #fedora-meeting for this important meeting.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 @21:00 UTC (17:00 EDT/14:00 PDT)

"Before each public release Development, QA and Release Engineering meet to determine
if the release criteria are met for a particular release. This meeting is called the:
Go/No-Go Meeting."

"Verifying that the Release criteria are met is the responsibility of the QA
Team."

For more details about this meeting[2]

In the meantime, keep an eye on the Fedora 16 Alpha Blocker list:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Current_Release_Blockers

-Robyn"

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-August/00081...
   2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Go_No_Go_Meeting

--- FUDCon EMEA travel subsidies are open ---

Christoph Wickert announced[1]:

"Hi there,

If you are planning to attend FUDCon Milan 2011 and need travel subsidies, the ticket
system is now open. If you need sponsoring, please

1. register[2]
2. put an X in the $$$ column
3. make a funding request in the the FUDCon ticket tracker[3]
4. General instructions about sponsoring[4]

Funding requests without a ticket will not be considered. We have a limited budget and
will work hard to fund as many people as possible. We'll use these answers to help
figure out budgeting for the event. We are making arrangements for attendees from other
geographic regions to encourage specific initiatives such as future FUDCon events, but
preference may otherwise be given to people in EMEA.

The next subsidy meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 16th at 15:00 UTC in
#fudcon-planning. Please show up in case the event organizers have questions about your
request.

Regards,

Christoph"

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-August/00081...
   2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Milan_2011#Pre-registration
   3. https://fedorahosted.org/fudcon-planning/wiki/FundingRequest
   4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Sponsoring_event_attendees

--- String Freeze 2011-08-02 ---

Noriko Mizumoto announced[1]:

"Fedora Packagers

It is String Freeze date on 2011-08-02. Fedora Localization team will soon start
translating latest packages via Transifex. Our goal is Fedora software translation to be
100% completed as many languages as possible.

Please make sure that your latest POT file has been uploaded to Transifex for translators.
If you think that you need to break the string freeze, then you should ask for approval
from the Fedora Localization Team prior to breaking the freeze. Software string freeze
policy can be found at[2]

Thank you so much for your support in advance.

Regards,

noriko Fedora L10N"

--- Changes to the Packaging Guidelines ---

Tom Callaway announced[3]:

"Here are the latest changes to the Fedora Packaging Guidelines:

---

Some rpm versions pass pathnames to the automatic filtering macros, so a section has been
added to the guidelines to help packagers deal with it[4]

---

For a while, Fedora considered mono packages to be architecture-specific, and installed
assemblies to %{_libdir}. However, after discussions with upstream, we now consider mono
packages to be architecture (and platform) independent. This means that mono packages
should be correctly installed into the GAC in /usr/lib or installed into
/usr/lib/PACKAGENAME.

As a notable exception, any ELF binary libraries generated in a mono package must be
correctly installed into %{_libdir}, because these files are architecture-specific.

Also, even though we consider mono packages to be architecture independent, they must not
be marked as "noarch". Although the assemblies are the same, the files may
differ due to strings referring to the build architecture.[5]

---

It was decided that gnome shell extension packages should have the prefix
gnome-shell-extension (with no "s" on the end).[6]

---

The section in the Fedora Packaging Guidelines concerning libexecdir has been improved and
expanded[7]

---

The Fedora Java Packaging Guidelines have been updated to reflect the latest macros for
Maven 3.[8]

---

These guidelines (and changes) were approved by the Fedora Packaging Committee (FPC).

Many thanks to Christian Krause, Aleksandar Kurtakov, Petr Pisar, Stanislav Ochotnicky,
and all of the members of the FPC, for assisting in drafting, refining, and passing these
guidelines.

As a reminder: The Fedora Packaging Guidelines are living documents! If you find something
missing, incorrect, or in need of revision, you can suggest a draft change. The procedure
for this is documented here[9]

Thanks,

~spot"

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-August/00081...
   2. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/StringFreezePolicy
   3. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2011-July/000815....
   4. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:AutoProvidesAndRequiresFiltering...
   5. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Mono#File_Locations
   6.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:NamingGuidelines#Addon_Packages_...
   7. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Libexecdir
   8. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java
   9. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Committee#GuidelineChangeProcedure

--- Fedora Events ---

The purpose of event is to build a global Fedora events calendar, and to identify
responsible Ambassadors for each event. The event page is laid out by quarter and by
region. Please maintain the layout, as it is crucial for budget planning. Events can be
added to this page whether or not they have an Ambassador owner. Events without an owner
are not eligible for funding, but being listed allows any Ambassador to take ownership of
the event and make it eligible for funding. In plain words, Fedora events are the
exclusive and source of marketing, learning and meeting all the fellow community people
around you. So, please mark your agenda with the following events to consider attending or
volunteering near you!
Upcoming Events (June - August 2011)

    * North America (NA)[1]
    * Central & South America (LATAM): [2]
    * Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)[3]
    * India, Asia, Australia (India/APJ)[4]

   1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY12_Q2_.28June_2011_-_August_2011.29
   2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY12_Q2_.28June_2011_-_August_2011.29_2
   3. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY12_Q2_.28June_2011_-_August_2011.29_3
   4. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events#FY12_Q2_.28June_2011_-_August_2011.29_4

---- Past Events ----

Archive of Past Fedora Events[1]

   1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/PastEvents

---- Additional information ----

    * Reimbursements -- reimbursement guidelines.
    * Budget -- budget for the current quarter (as distributed by FAMSCo).
    * Sponsorship -- how decisions are made to subsidize travel by community members.
    * Organization -- event organization, budget information, and regional
responsibility.
    * Event reports -- guidelines and suggestions.
    * LinuxEvents -- a collection of calendars of Linux events.

-- Quality Assurance --

In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. For more information on the
work of the QA team and how you can get involved, see the Joining page[2].

Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson

   1. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA
   2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Join

--- Test Days ---

The Fedora 15 Test Day track is now finished, and the main Fedora 16 Test Day track has
not yet started. If you would like to propose a main track Test Day for the Fedora 16
cycle, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or file a ticket in QA Trac[1]. At the
weekly group meeting of 2011-07-18[2], the group agreed to delay the planned Fedora 15 on
Amazon EC2 Test Day on 2011-07-19, as the images would not be ready in time. Adam
Williamson pencilled in the X Test Week for 2011-08-30 to 2011-09-01[3], and Jaroslav
Škarvada proposed a power management Test Day for 2011-09-29[4]. Adam sent out a call for
Test Days[5].

The Fedora 15 on Amazon EC2 Test Day was eventually held on 2011-08-04[6]. The turnout was
modest, but the five testers present were able to confirm the provided AMIs mostly worked
well, and expose a few bugs.

   1. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/
   2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20110718
   3. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/223
   4. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/225
   5. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101393.html
   6. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-08-04_Cloud_SIG_Fedora_EC2

--- Fedora 16 Alpha preparation ---

Throughout the last few weeks, the team has been working to prepare for the Fedora 16
Alpha release. A first acceptance test run was attempted by Tao Wu on 2011-07-19[1], and
ran into critical early failure in the installer. A second attempt was made on 2011-07-26,
and failed similarly[2]. The first (and only) test compose was released behind schedule on
2011-08-02[3], and again contained significant bugs. Adam Williamson started a post-TC1
strategy discussion[4] to decide what to do in case it seemed impractical to produce a
release candidate in a reasonable timeframe, but in the event, all TC1 blockers were
thought to be addressed by 2011-08-06, and a release candidate was produced[5].

In the meantime, blocker bug review meetings were held each Friday - 2011-07-22[6],
2011-07-29[7] and 2011-08-05[8] to review the substantial volume of blocker bugs which
were identified.
oVirt node spin review and testing

At the 2011-07-18 weekly meeting, the group held an initial discussion of the proposed
oVirt node spin[9], from the standpoint of whether to grant it QA approval. Athmane
Madjoudj volunteered to work on making sure the necessary testing framework was in place.
By 2011-07-22, he had a draft validation matrix[10] ready for review[11]. The draft matrix
was reviewed at the weekly meeting of 2011-07-25[12], and the group agreed Athmane's
validation matrix was good and the oVirt spin should be granted QA approval.

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101376.html
   2. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101497.html
   3. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-August/101596.html
   4. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-August/101635.html
   5. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-August/101689.html
   6.
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-bugzappers/2011-07-22/f16-blocker...
   7. http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-bugzappers/2011-07-29/
   8. http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-bugzappers/2011-08-05/
   9. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ovirt_Node_Spin
  10. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Athmane/Draft_Ovirt_Node_validation_ma...
  11. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101439.html
  12. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20110725

--- QA group meeting SOP ---

James Laska announced[1] that he had put the draft group meeting SOP (see FWN #282) into
production[2].

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101358.html
   2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:SOP_IRC_meeting_process

--- Separation of release validation and feature processes ---

At the FESCo meeting of 2011-07-18[1], FESCo approved the group's proposal (see FWN
#282) to formalize the separation between the release validation and feature processes.
Adam Williamson subsequently announced that he had made the necessary changes to the
wiki[2].

   1.
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2011-07-18/fesco.2011-07-...
   2. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101368.html

--- Fedora 16 Alpha RATs run ---

Tao Wu announced the completion of the first RATs (Rawhide Acceptance Tests) automated
installation testing run for Fedora 16 Alpha[1]. He reported that the testing failed due
to a major bug in installation[2].

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101376.html
   2. http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=723144

--- Instalatron anaconda testing framework ---

Sergio Rubio of FrameOS[1] wrote to let the group know[2] of the release of
Instalatron[3], a testing framework for anaconda based around VirtualBox input automation
and ImageMagick image comparison. James Laska replied to thank Sergio for reaching out,
and to point out the similar work being done by Tao Wu and Hongqing Yang to automate the
Fedora installation validation matrix[4]. Tim Flink asked some questions about the design
of Instalatron[5], and Sergio provided some answers[6]. Eric Blake noted that KVM had
recently grown the ability to inject keyboard scancodes[7], which Sergio had cited as the
main reason for choosing VirtualBox. David Cantrell gave a heads-up that the design of
anaconda would soon change quite drastically[8], and James recommended the use of AT-SPI
in preference to image analysis[9]. Sergio thanked everyone for their feedback[10].

   1. http://frameos.org
   2. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101384.html
   3. http://github.com/abiquo/instalatron
   4. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101385.html
   5. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101387.html
   6. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101399.html
   7. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101400.html
   8. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101415.html
   9. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101416.html
  10. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101417.html

--- Release criteria updates ---

James Laska followed up his initial survey of ways to handle secondary architecture
release criteria (see FWN #281) with a draft[1] of the preferred approach[2].

James also proposed some changes to the criteria following from the second Alpha blocker
bug review meeting[3]. Rui He adjusted a test case to reflect the proposed change[4]. Adam
Williamson suggested a change to James' proposed shutdown criterion[5], which prompted
some discussion. Ultimately James updated the criteria with the revised proposals[6], and
proposed a test case to enforce the shutdown criterion[7].

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101431.html
   2. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101431.html
   3. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101446.html
   4. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101462.html
   5. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101480.html
   6. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101518.html
   7. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-July/101517.html

--- Release criteria and validation testing ---

Rui He continued adjusting installation validation test cases in response to Adam
Williamson's release criteria / validation test concordance survey. She added a test
for uncategorized packages[1], updated some test cases to check unattended installations
work[2], added a test for the 'use existing Linux partitions' partitioning
method[3], updated the rescue mode test case[4], and added test cases for btrfs and xfs
installations[5].

   1. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/216
   2. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/217
   3. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/201
   4. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/218
   5. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/209

--- Acceptance testing SOP ---

Rui He proposed the creation of an SOP for the rawhide acceptance testing events[1]. Tao
Wu worked on a draft SOP[2], and Adam Williamson provided feedback. Eventually, Tao, Adam
and James Laska progressed to a broader discussion on the nature of RATS events, and
whether they should simply be folded into the Test Compose / Release Candidate process.

   1. http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/ticket/227
   2. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:SOP_Rawhide_Acceptance_Test_Event

--- Security testing scripts ---

Steve Grubb announced[1] some scripts for testing the security of Fedora[2]. Adam
Williamson thanked him for the work, and wondered if any of the scripts would be suitable
for incorporation into AutoQA[3]. Kamil Paral highlighted some issues with integrating
third party tests in the current state of AutoQA[4].

   1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-August/101624.html
   2. http://people.redhat.com/sgrubb/security/
   3. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-August/101629.html
   4. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-August/101652.html

--- AutoQA ---

James Laska wondered if it would be possible to run depcheck tests on EPEL packages[1].
Kamil Paral said it had not been tried yet, and had some questions about the benefits. He
summarized that "Overall it should be doable, but it requires quite some work and
resources."[2]. James said he would check if it was the EPEL SIG or individual
maintainers who were interested[3].

Josef Skladanka posted[4] a "brain dump" of ideas he and Kamil had come up with
around depcheck[5].

Kamil proposed (and later carried out) the inclusion of a NEWS file in the AutoQA
source[6], and provided a draft[7].

The group continued to work on several tasks related to making AutoQA output more
attractive and legible[8] [9] [10].

   1. http://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/autoqa-devel/2011-July/002615.html
   2. http://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/autoqa-devel/2011-July/002616.html
   3. http://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/autoqa-devel/2011-July/002621.html
   4. http://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/autoqa-devel/2011-July/002620.html
   5. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jskladan/Sandbox:Depcheck
   6. http://fedorahosted.org/pipermail/autoqa-devel/2011-July/002622.html
   7. http://kparal.fedorapeople.org/autoqa/NEWS
   8. http://fedorahosted.org/autoqa/ticket/351
   9. http://fedorahosted.org/autoqa/ticket/359
  10. http://fedorahosted.org/autoqa/ticket/361

-- Security Advisories --

In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce for the three
weeks ending August 11, 2011.

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce

Contributing Writer: Pascal Calarco

--- Fedora 15 Security Advisories ---

    * glpi-0.78.5-2.svn14966.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * phpMyAdmin-3.4.3.2-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * libcap-2.22-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * libsoup-2.34.3-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * drupal7-7.6-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * p7zip-9.20.1-2.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * openarena-0.8.5-4.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * quake3-1.36-11.svn2102.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * cifs-utils-5.0-2.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * wireshark-1.4.8-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * system-config-firewall-1.2.29-4.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * mapserver-5.6.7-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * dbus-1.4.6-5.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * erlang-R14B-03.2.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06321...
    * systemtap-1.5-8.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06319...
    * xml-security-c-1.5.1-5.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06322...
    * oprofile-0.9.6-21.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06308...
    * xmms-1.2.11-15.20071117cvs.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06308...
    * ruby-1.8.7.352-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06307...
    * libpng10-1.0.55-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06297...
    * libsndfile-1.0.25-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06295...
    * squirrelmail-1.4.22-2.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06293...
    * icedtea-web-1.0.4-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06285...
    * vte3-0.28.1-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06281...
    * vte-0.28.1-1.fc15 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06281...

--- Fedora 14 Security Advisories ---

    * openarena-0.8.5-4.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * quake3-1.36-11.svn2102.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * phpMyAdmin-3.4.3.2-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * cifs-utils-4.8.1-7.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * wireshark-1.4.8-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * drupal7-7.6-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * mapserver-5.6.7-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-54.1.9.9.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-August/063...
    * systemtap-1.5-8.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06323...
    * xml-security-c-1.5.1-4.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06315...
    * libpng-1.2.46-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06311...
    * erlang-R14B-03.1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06311...
    * ruby-1.8.7.352-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06306...
    * oprofile-0.9.6-21.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06304...
    * xmms-1.2.11-15.20071117cvs.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06301...
    * squirrelmail-1.4.22-2.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06298...
    * libpng10-1.0.55-1.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06293...
    * cifs-utils-4.8.1-6.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06289...
    * libvirt-0.8.3-10.fc14 -
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/06285...

-- Planet Fedora --

This is the Planet Fedora section, covering news from planet.fedoraproject.org[1], a
collection of blogs from Fedora users spanning the globe.

Contributing Writer: Joel Braun

--- Events ---

---- FLOSSCamp 2011 ----

Nicu Buculei wrote about his time at FLOSScamp 2011[1], the 5th Romanian free and open
source software gathering.

---- FUDCon India ----

Rahul Sundaram posted the August 9th meeting minutes for FUDCon India[2].

--- Fedora Community ---

Max Spevack, a former Fedora Project leader, has announced that he is leaving Red Hat and
that Harish Pillay will be stepping in to fill his role[3].

Máirín Duffy has announced some additions[4] to the Fedora logo Guidelines.

Joerg Simon has announced some new members[5] to the Fedora Ambassadors team. He has also
posted statistical graphs of the acceptance and numbers of Fedora ambassadors[6].

Máirín Duffy also gave an update on the changes to Fedora Community[7], a webapp designed
to help Fedora's package maintainers do their jobs.

--- General ---

The Pulp team blogged on adding non-rpm content support[8].

Dan Walsh wrote about SELinux changes[9] that will come with the alpha release of Fedora
16.

Robyn Bergeron talked about why the Fedora 16 alpha build is being delayed by one
week[10], citing numerous bugs.

   1. http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2011/08/flosscamp-2011.html
   2.
http://mether.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/fudcon-india-aug-9th-2011-face-to-...
   3. http://spevack.livejournal.com/115398.html
   4. http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2011/07/19/newly-expanded-fedora-logo-guidelines/
   5. http://kitall.blogspot.com/2011/07/fedora-ambassadors-welcome-week-29.html
   6. http://kitall.blogspot.com/2011/07/fedora-ambassadors-membership-stats.html
   7. http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2011/07/20/fedora-community-the-app-update/
   8. http://blog.pulpproject.org/2011/08/08/generic-content-support/
   9. http://danwalsh.livejournal.com/44836.html
  10. http://wordshack.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/f16-alpha-slip/

- end FWN 283 -

---
Pascal Calarco
Fedora Ambassador, Ontario, Canada