Some instaGENI FOAM sites do not have site.admin.email set

[lnevers@bbn.com]

The following InstaGENI sites do not have the site.admin.email variable set, which results in the AP API getversion information not including an admin-email contact for the site:

• Clemson University
• MAX
• University of Missouri, Columbia
• NYSERNET
• NYU
• Utah Downtown Data Center
• Illinois
• Wisconsin
• SOX

Writing this ticket to track list of sites that do not have this value set.

[lnevers@bbn.com]

Another site that requires the site.admin.email variable to be set is University of Illinois.

[lnevers@bbn.com]

Another site that requires the site.admin.email variable to be set is University of Wisconsin.

[lnevers@bbn.com]

Another site that requires the site.admin.email variable to be set is SoX.

[hdempsey@bbn.com]

1. Please make sure these variables are set, for the sites that have already been noted by Luisa. The default entry should be the mailing list entry on the initial InstaGENI site survey form, which should be entered as part of the FOAM installation.

2. Talk to Nick to make sure the default entry goes in as part of every FOAM installation.

3. When you contact site admins for new rack installations to let them know about their FOAM admin responsibilities and give them initial FOAM training (which should happen as part of the rack checklist before the site is handed off for site confirmation testing), verify that the FOAM admin will see mail that goes to the default entry. If the site contact/FOAM admin wants to change the default entry to a different email that works better for them, let them know how to do it, and ask them to do that as their first admin task, so that the variable will be set correctly for confirmation testing.

[nick.bastin@gmail.com]

As I have said before, it is not our place to set this value. site.admin.email is set by the site, and is only set at sites where the admins have set it. No other AM software places contact information in getversion, and it is not required by either the AM API getversion spec, or the GENI Racks requirement document.

[jbs@bbn.com]

Also, this is not an InstaGENI-specific issue. As Heidi suggested, I have a general task to deal with documentation, configuration, and training of FOAM admins, and will cover this as part of that.

[hdempsey@bbn.com]

The variable needs to be set before confirmation testing. It is up to you and Josh to work out how this gets done. Rack teams already set email variables for admin mail based on site contact inputs on the site survey, so it is not true that admins have any objection to our setting this variable to that default.

[jbs@bbn.com]

The admin e-mail variables control how FOAM sends e-mail. They aren't publicized to the entire world, like site.admin.email is.

I don't think anyone has ever objected to us publishing their address in this way, but I also don't think we've ever asked anyone's permission.

In any case, nothing about this setting should affect confirmation testing, since it's purely informational.

[nick.bastin@gmail.com]

*I* am certainly not taking responsibility for making the admin email public when that is not something we ask the admin whether they want us to do in the questionnaire, and we don't tell them we're doing it in the documentation. If GPO wishes to require this of site admins, GPO can either work with each admin after the fact, or we can change the questionnaire and documentation and make sure we get site sign off.

Again, there is no other AM software that exposes this information to the world at large, so I fail to see how it could possibly be a functional requirement for confirmation testing, as every other aggregate and rack would fail this test.

[lnevers@bbn.com]

This information in the getversion is not exactly public, one must have GENI credential to get the getversion output.

Why was this implemented if it is not required, no other aggregate makes it available, and we are not willing to make it public? May be we should we consider removing this all together?

[jbs@bbn.com]

I'll discuss this further with Heidi and Luisa off of this ticket.

[nick.bastin@gmail.com]

Like much of the software used on IG racks, FOAM wasn't written specifically for InstaGENI - it's an open source resource manager with a GENI AM API front end. There are many features in FOAM that the racks don't (and would never) use, and there are some features, like this one, that a rack could optionally use but has nothing to do with the any operation of the software necessary to conform to the GENI AM API or any specific rack requirements.

[lnevers@bbn.com]

Just curious.... Looking at site_info returned by getversion for InstaGENI racks:

Clemson FOAM:     'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Clemson'}}
GATech FOAM:      'site_info': {   'admin-email': '', 'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Georgia Tech'}}
GPO FOAM:         'site_info': {   'admin-email': 'instageni-foam-admin@gpolab.bbn.com', 'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: GPO'}}
Illinois FOAM:    'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Illinois'}}
Kansas FOAM:      'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Kansas'}}
Kettering FOAM:   'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Kettering'}}
MAX FOAM:         'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: MAX'}}
Missouri FOAM:    'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Missouri'}}
NYSERnet FOAM:    'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: NYSERNET'}}
NYU FOAM:         'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: NYU'}}
Northwestern FOAM:'site_info': {   'admin-email': '', 'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Northwestern'}}
SOX FOAM:         'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: SoX'}}
UKY FOAM:         'site_info': {   'admin-email': 'geni-ky-help@netlab.uky.edu', 'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Kentucky'}}
Utah DDC FOAM:    'site_info': {   'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: University of Utah Downtown Data Center'}}
Utah FOAM:        'site_info': {   'admin-email': 'nick.bastin@gmail.com', 'admin-name': 'Nick Bastin', 'description': 'InstaGENI Rack: Utah'}}

Sometimes the 'admin-email' is listed but has no value (GATech, Northwestern). Should it be not listed when no value is set?

[nick.bastin@gmail.com]

That's an actual FOAM bug that will likely be fixed in 0.12.5.

[lnevers@bbn.com]

Another site that requires the site.admin.email variable to be set is Kansas.

[jbs@bbn.com]

We've talked about this within the GPO, and have concluded that it's fine to leave this unset, so we'll remove it from the confirmation test checklist.