Fedora Server and Fedora System Administration Guide

[Dr. Peter Boy]

I'm member of the Fedora Server Working Group and am doing along with others some work
on the Server documentation.

We are evaluating the option of contributing in parts to the general Fedora System
Administration Guide and Installation Guide, rather than "inventing the wheel"
completely from scratch. At first glance, the "contribution option" seems more
sensible and reasonable to us. But it may be more complicated than we realize.

Would this actually be advantageous from a docs working group perspective?  Is there an
opportunity to discuss the implications, opportunities and existing obstacles?

Peter

[Petr Bokoc]

Hello Peter,

I think contributing to existing docs is preferable. However, please
note that especially the Sysadmin Guide is ancient at this point, it's
pretty much a copy of the original RHEL 7.0 System Administrator's Guide
and it has received very few updates over the last few years. The
Installation Guide is in better shape, it's been getting some updates
and I actually rewrote about a half of it a few years back, but it's
still not great. With that in mind, you might want to start by reviewing
both documents and noting what's outdated, what's missing, etc. Any
updates are welcome.

Our contributor documentation is at
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-docs/, it's fairly standard
stuff - clone the repo, make a PR, all that jazz; it also has some
pointers on ASCIIDoc. If anyone looking to contribute has any questions,
they should go ahead and ask in #fedora-docs on FreeNode, or the bridged
Telegram channel (https://t.me/fedora_docs).

Cheers,

Petr

On 3/17/21 10:37 PM, Dr. Peter Boy wrote:
>  I'm member of the Fedora Server Working Group and am doing along
> with others some work on the Server documentation.
>
>  We are evaluating the option of contributing in parts to the general Fedora System
> Administration Guide and Installation Guide, rather than "inventing the wheel"
> completely from scratch. At first glance, the "contribution option" seems more
> sensible and reasonable to us. But it may be more complicated than we realize.
>
>  Would this actually be advantageous from a docs working group perspective?  Is there an
> opportunity to discuss the implications, opportunities and existing obstacles?
>
>  Peter
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[Peter Boy]

Hello Petr,

thanks for all the info 

>  Am 18.03.2021 um 15:04 schrieb Petr Bokoc <pbokoc(a)redhat.com&gt;:
>  I think contributing to existing docs is preferable. However, please
>  note that especially the Sysadmin Guide is ancient at this point, it's
>  pretty much a copy of the original RHEL 7.0 System Administrator's Guide
>  and it has received very few updates over the last few years.  
I skipped through both documents a while ago. My impression was, the individual chapters
are mostly OK, some need a bit of an update. My bigger concern are the missing bits and
even more the structure of the existing document body. I miss a clear intention, the
„mission“ of the parts in their context. I had the impression the guide had been
conceptualised at a time when Fedora was a uniform distribution and not differentiated
into editions. That would be in accordance with the creation as RHEL Guide.

I think the biggest change would be an adaptation to the current Fedora deployment
structure in editions.

An adapted structure could be something like:

- Preface, more or less current content

- Fedora Workstation Administration – in large parts the current Basic System Content. The
basis is the existence of a GUI, by which the administration is done.

- Fedora Server - largely new, more or less same topics as Workstation, but based on CLI
and Cockpit, maybe some additional post-Anaconda stuff as security enhancements,
organising data storage, application installation concepts etc. Or the latter topics will
be left to the specific Fedora Server documentation, when it ever exists. 

- As a wish: Fedora Cloud Images - mainly CLI and cloud-init (Cloud and Server are
currently discussing areas for possible profitable cooperation). 

- Fedora Administration Reference - cross edition topics
— - Service and Daemons 
— - OpenSSN
- - TigerVNS (or better part of Workstation chapters)
- - DNF
- - RPM
- - Monitoring & Automation (or better part of Server chapters )
- - Wayland Display Server (or better part of Workstation chapters) 


Not sure about the chapter „Servers“. Most of it is Server stuff. But currently all the
special features of the Server Edition are missing. And then there is other documentation,
such as Web Server in Quick Docs. Both are not really coordinated. For now, perhaps
it's best to make this a separate guide „Providing Services“ or so. Smaller portions
may be more manageable.


My idea is to establish an adapted structure as soon as possible and first fill it with
alle the existing content as far as possible, so that you already have a viable basis.
This can then be updated and expanded in smaller steps. Otherwise, it would be a huge task
that probably could not be coped with in the foreseeable future given current existing
resources. 


>  The
>  Installation Guide is in better shape, it's been getting some updates
>  and I actually rewrote about a half of it a few years back, but it's
>  still not great. 
Here there should also be a differentiation in the editions. Many things are the same
(keyboard, time, source, ...) but important items differ, e.g. disk partitioning.

But the effort is far less, I think. Maybe that would still be feasible for F34. 


>  With that in mind, you might want to start by reviewing
>  both documents and noting what's outdated, what's missing, etc. Any
>  updates are welcome. 

I am happy to contribute. However, I would like to reach agreement on the structure and
basic content  in advance, in order not to invest working time possibly in vain. 



>  Our contributor documentation is at
>  https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-docs/, it's fairly standard
>  stuff - clone the repo, make a PR, all that jazz; it also has some
>  pointers on ASCIIDoc. If anyone looking to contribute has any questions,
>  they should go ahead and ask in #fedora-docs on FreeNode, or the bridged
>  Telegram channel (https://t.me/fedora_docs). 
The workflow is a bit unusual for writers. But I’m making progress.


Best
Peter


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