This week we decided to apply what everyone has learned individually to the entire project and organize teams based on the existing knowledge of different groups. My group decided to investigates the test suite eutester and how to not only set it all up, but find out where to set it up on the server and how to apply it to the Eucalyptus software.

We each downloaded the eutester repository and built it locally and installed it. Then we began looking through the code to see if we could determine what was being tested. We understood the code pretty well, but we did not know how to use it properly since we could not figure out how to run Eucalyptus. We decided to set up a PiratePad for our group to keep track of our individual findings and apply them all to one group effort. We have a few ideas about how to get it all working because we learned how to download and run a Eucalyptus image, but we are not sure about where to go from there.

After logging in to the Neo machine and learning how the server is connected, I think it would be best to install Eucalyptus either on Morpheus, so that the Virtual Machines below it can all access it, or choose a Virtual Machine and work exclusively on that so we do not make any undesirable changes on the rest of the cluster. For testing purposes we probably want to use the latter, but eventually we may want to apply our system to the Morpheus node and let the VMs below handle parallel processing so that everything will be faster.

Basically, our goal for the week is to get Eucalyptus running on one of our nodes and then try to get the eutester code running as well. We want to see some output to make sure we are on the right track. Then we can document everything we’ve done so far and share it with the class/Eucalyptus community so that we can all get started on cranking out some test code. Next week, if all goes well and we have gotten the test code to run properly, we can start analyzing the output and look at some of the logged issues to start improving the existing code. These may be somewhat overly ambitious goals, but it is certainly worth a try to learn as much as we can and actually start contributing documentation and real code to this project.

From the blog trevorhodde by Trevor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Even though we did not have class last week due to the holiday, I still did a lot of reading up on the Eucalyptus software and the eutester code. I am very interested in looking into the testing package and hopefully contributing to it throughout the semester. I installed euca2ools and I think I learned how to run the software locally, though I am not sure how to use it yet.

Additionally, I got more comfortable with downloading the eutester repo and building/installing that code locally. I think that if I can learn to combine these tools and apply them to our server, we can begin testing and developing. I plan to spend this week and next week looking into how this works and hopefully I’ll be able to get some test code running by the end of the week.

From the blog trevorhodde by Trevor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Doing the Git exercise in class was pretty cool. Luckily I have used git before, so I am pretty familiar with the syntax as well as how it works. Once my RSA key was registered, I had a fairly easy time of pulling down the repo and editing files to be pushed back out. My group members seemed to grasp the concepts very quickly as well, so it was not difficult for us all to work around each others changes. We had very few conflicts when making changes.

The one thing that seemed to get me, as well as another of my group members, was when we were setting the git config stuff, we both accidentally set out user.name variable to “color.ui” because we misread the instructions. So when we pushed committed changes to the repository, our names showed up as “color.ui” instead of our actual user names. Once we went into the config file and made the proper changes, all went smoothly. The actual git part of the assignment was not difficult. I think by the end of the class almost our entire group had added a separate file to the repo and also edited a common file so we could all see each others changes.

I’m looking forward to actually using git with this project because I have only used it on a very large scale at work. So I think using it in class on a smaller repository will be much more interesting because I will actually be able to tell exactly what was changed at a quick glance. Also, I am wondering if we are going to be committing patches or if we will simply do a git commit of our changes and then push them out to the repo. At work, I am used to doing a git format-patch HEAD^ and generating a patch for review before it is added to the repository, however it seems like the way we are doing it in class is a little more straightforward, even if it is more likely that someone will commit code that doesn’t work 100%. It would be nice if there was a designated person in the group to review the patches before committing them so that someone doesn’t push out something broken and overwrite good code. I guess that will have to be up to the group members to investigate how well the code works before pushing it out.

Looking forward to getting started!

From the blog trevorhodde by Trevor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In class today, we discussed the possibilities of working a few different projects, including VLC, Firefox, Irrlicht, Eucalyptus and Libre Office. Eventually, we reached a decision as a class to work on the Eucalyptus project. This seems like a very cool project because we will be able to work very closely with some of the lead developers. I like the idea of getting involved in cloud computing as well, even if it really is not that much different from regular programming.

I am also excited to use Python to do most of the programming. I really like Python and I think it should be fairly easy for the class to pick up. This project also gives students with other computer interests, such as networking and security, something to learn and apply. I know that there are several students that strongly dislike programming, so this is a good opportunity for them to use their skills in a helpful way to those of us who prefer programming.

In addition, I really hope that the people in the class who are not yet on board with this project are able to accept the fact that our minds are made up. There are plenty of other projects that I would enjoy working on, in addition to Eucalyptus, but I think this project will be fun and I am looking forward to learning as much as I can. I am also really enjoying using the IRC to talk with the Eucalyptus people. They have already been very helpful in giving us information and helping us reach a decision.

Overall, this should be pretty interesting to set up and start working on!

From the blog trevorhodde by Trevor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Last week was pretty interesting. Learning how to setup and use IRC was not very difficult, but once we were all in the chat room, everything got crazy. I think that the IRC channel #teachingopensource could be very useful for working closely with other developers as we learn more about open source software.

The Eualyptus project sounds very promising and I am very interested in learning more about it. I am looking forward to digging into the code and hopefully making something useful happen. The main developers do not seem to think that our class could actually contribute much to the project, but I am planning on learning as much as I can and trying to actually make something decent.

As for the editing wiki part of the IRC experience, I found it somewhat unpleasant. I couldn’t get anyone to edit mine because everyone was talking about random things the whole time in the IRC. When I finally got someone to do it, they wrote one line on it that said something like, “I don’t know what to write.” Overall, I learned a little more about editing wikis, but the process of doing so was not simple because of the IRC channel distracting the groups.

From the blog trevorhodde by Trevor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello,

I am really looking forward to starting this course and actually contributing to a large scale, open source project. I don’t really have a preference about which project we end up contributing to, whether it is Firefox, Sage, or anything else. I am mostly just excited to look at real world code and hopefully make some useful and interesting changes to the code.

I am hoping to get several things out of this course. First of all, I would really like to contribute something worthwhile to an open source project. I want to be able to look back at these projects and see that I actually made a difference, even if it is not huge.

Secondly, I would like to be able to apply some of the things I have learned in previous CS courses to these projects. We learned so many useful techniques of Software Development in our 375 class (Software Analysis and Design), that I would really enjoy seeing it all in action. Things like Design Patterns, Polymorphism, etc. are very important factors in elegant software design and though I have used all of these techniques in real world code at my internships, I would like to have a chance to implement them all in my own way for one of these projects.

Finally, I am looking forward to using GIT more on my own. Again, I am familiar with GIT from my internships, yet there is plenty more I would like to learn about it. I know it is an incredibly powerful tool and I can’t wait to get started with really putting its features to use.

Overall, I think this is going to be a great course and I think we are going to learn a lot.

From the blog trevorhodde by Trevor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.