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srobo / tasks

Collects all the tasks which we want to work on.
https://github.com/srobo/tasks/issues
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Prepare reception machines. #217

Closed RealOrangeOne closed 5 years ago

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

Now that we've done https://github.com/srobo/tasks/issues/59, we need to install the software on the machines provided by #100.

Requirements

I've tested this on Antergos, but the required packages exist in the Debian APT repositories, so we should use that, for stability reasons.

These machines should also have external webcams ideally, to prevent volunteers needing to take competitor devices.

trickeydan commented 5 years ago

I've tested this on Antergos, so unless anyone has any strong objections

Can we please use a stable OS.

Debian 9 will do.

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

It looks like the required packages are available in the Debian APT repos, so yes let's use that instead!

Tyler-Ward commented 5 years ago

Are we planning on installing this on live USB sticks or do we need to reformat the machines being used for reception? I believe currently they run windows for use with the minibots mindstorms kits.

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

Reformat if possible, unless we can get access to some decent quality and capacity USB drives.

Tyler-Ward commented 5 years ago

If we need to reformat then we might need to find new machines for use on reception as we don't want to have to rebuild all the minibots outreach machines after the competition.

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

The UI doesn't work on windows, so we'll need to source some USBs. IIRC there's some USBs with fedora installed on, so we can use those. Worst comes to worst we can just partition it

trickeydan commented 5 years ago

We aren't reformatting the SRO laptops.

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

Then unless we can get some decent USB drives, we can just partition them, which is fine. And I suspect useful for SRO to have some additional machines which also run Linux

PeterJCLaw commented 5 years ago

We have a bunch of USB sticks which were spares for team kits. While they're not very large, I'm reasonably sure you can fit a Debian image onto them. We don't need them to have particularly stellar performance as the UI is pretty lightweight and will be all in memory by the time it matters.

The challenge there is wanting to encrypt the key somehow, though that's a challenge when running anything off a USB stick. Ideally the key would only exist on physical devices which are a bit harder to remove than a USB stick.

Maybe we do need to use a different key for signing than the internal authz (this something we can fairly easily change later though).

trickeydan commented 5 years ago

Add a separate LUKS encrypted partition on the USBs that contains the keys. That way if the USB is removed the encryption key is lost and the key is still secure.

trickeydan commented 5 years ago

we can just partition them, which is fine. And I suspect useful for SRO to have some additional machines which also run Linux

No you cannot partition them, you will not modify the operating system or settings on the machines in any way. They are currently setup as we need and like them. This includes the BIOS boot order.

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

you will not modify the operating system or settings on the machines in any way

We don't need to. A partition doesn't modify the existing OS, and we can use the boot-time override to specify we want to boot to the additional partition. Then after the competition, we login to the original OS, and nuke the new partitions

trickeydan commented 5 years ago

https://sourcebots.slack.com/archives/C2XQGF8QP/p1553175662013300

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

After the aforementioned discussions, the laptops may not be modified in any way by SR, this includes formatting or partitioning. The reception software doesn't run under windows (the only OS on the laptops currently).

We therefore have 2 options:

My suggestion is to go with Option 2, as it reduces any chances of a mis-configuration or mis-communication damaging the SRO existing installs.

PeterJCLaw commented 5 years ago

Last time I tried, it was possible to live-boot a USB stick while also having a second partition on the USB stick which persists changes. If we can make that work I think it would be ideal.

Note separately that the score-entry machine is currently assumed to be a linux (or mac) box as I'm not aware that SRComp has ever been tested running on Windows, nor do we have a hosted version of the score-entry software. Either of these could change, but I'm highlighting that that's the current situation.

RealOrangeOne commented 5 years ago

The boot USB drives are now in my possession. The laptops weren't available to test today, so i'll aim to do some testing during the week, and if not, next weekend.

Tyler-Ward commented 5 years ago

This either happened or it didnt

PeterJCLaw commented 5 years ago

As I understand it, there were some issues here. Notably:

We should improve this for next year.