1 [[!meta title="scripts.mit.edu Fedora 13 transition"]]
2 On Sunday, September 26, 2010, all of the scripts.mit.edu servers
4 [Fedora 11](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/11) to
5 [Fedora 13](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/13) , which was
6 released on May 25. We strongly encourage you to test your website
7 as soon as possible, and to contact us at
8 [scripts@mit.edu](mailto:scripts@mit.edu) if you experience any
9 problems. The easiest way to test your site is to run the following
10 commands at an Athena workstation and then visit your website in
11 the browser that opens, but see below for more details:
16 ### Why are we upgrading?
18 Keeping the scripts.mit.edu servers secure is one of the most
19 important things that the team works on. This includes not only
20 careful design and review of the custom software that we run, but
21 keeping up to date with security patches for Fedora, which is the
22 distribution of Linux that we run. Fedora’s security support for
23 Fedora 11 has already ended, and while we have been manually
24 backporting security fixes during this period of time, we will be
25 upgrading to Fedora 13 to receive official security support for
26 approximately another year.
28 ### Will I need to do anything to my website?
30 We expect that for the vast majority of our users, the upgrade will
31 be very smooth, your applications will work with no changes, and
32 you won’t have to do anything. However, we strongly encourage you
33 to test your website as soon as possible. Also, check the list of
34 known issues to see if you are likely to experience any problems
35 we’re already aware of. In particular, it is very important that
36 you test your site soon if you rely on PHP 5.2, as Fedora 13 now
39 ### How will the upgrade work?
41 Sometime on Sunday, September 26, three scripts.mit.edu servers
42 running Fedora 13 will be added to the load-balancing pool, and
43 simultaneously the five current Fedora 11 servers will be removed
44 from the pool. Over the course of the next few days, additional
45 Fedora 13 servers will be set up and made available.
47 ### Will there be a service outage?
49 We do not expect there to be any service outage. Our plan is to
50 simultaneously add three Fedora 13 servers to the load-balancing
51 pool and remove the Fedora 11 servers. If your website and scripts
52 work with our Fedora 13 testing server, they should work and be
53 available to your visitors continuously throughout this process.
55 ### How do I test my website?
57 There are several options available to you.
59 **Note: If you are running an application that asks you to upgrade it when you use our testing server, do not perform the upgrade until September 26.**
60 If you do, your site will most likely work on the testing server,
61 but no longer work on the production Fedora 11 servers. If you do
62 perform an upgrade, you will most likely have to restore a backup
63 of your database and/or application. If you wish to test your
64 application sooner, you may wish to make a new copy of it that uses
67 #### Athena workstation
69 On any Athena workstation, you can log in and run these commands
70 (make sure you do not have a web browser open first):
75 This will start Firefox for you with special configuration that
76 ensures that any website you visit that’s hosted on scripts will be
77 retrieved from our test server. You can then try using all the
78 features of your website just as you ordinarily would. Note that
79 this will be using your real website; it is not a separate copy of
82 This configuration will only be used while you have that copy of
83 Firefox open. If you close it and run Firefox normally, you will no
84 longer be using our test server.
86 #### Manual URL change
88 If you currently use a URL like
90 http://scripts.mit.edu/~yourLockerName/siteName
92 and it does not do any fancy redirection or mangling of the URL,
93 then you can simply visit
95 http://scripts-test.mit.edu/~yourLockerName/siteName
97 instead. Note: Several web applications, including WordPress,
98 change the URL on you – once you click any link from the front page
99 of a WordPress installation, you will no longer be using the test
100 server. If you have such an application, you will need to use one
101 of the other testing methods.
105 If you visit the SIPB office (W20-557), there are a few specially
106 labelled workstations there which always use the scripts testing
107 server. You do not need to do any special configuration to test
108 your site on these machines. Feel free to come by SIPB any time
109 we’re open (the office doesn’t have fixed hours, but is open most
110 afternoons and evenings; feel free to call 617-253-7788 to check if
111 we’re open before coming over) and test your site on these
116 If you use Linux, or a similar operating system, and are
117 comfortable with system administration tasks, you can temporarily
118 configure your system to use our testing server by adding a line to
119 your /etc/hosts file that maps the hostname your website uses to
120 the IP address 18.181.0.229. Note that your website might use any
123 scripts.mit.edu, scripts-cert.mit.edu, yourLockerName.scripts.mit.edu
125 or something like customname.mit.edu. Be sure that the line you add
126 to your /etc/hosts uses the correct name, and be sure that you
127 remove that line when you are done testing. If you are on a Windows
128 system, the analogous file is
130 C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
132 ### May I ssh into the test server?
134 Yes, anyone with a scripts account may ssh to
135 `whole-enchilada.mit.edu` (we don’t have `scripts-test.mit.edu`
136 working quite yet), just as you ordinarily would ssh to
137 scripts.mit.edu, if you would like to use a shell.
139 ### What are the known issues at this time?
141 Please check [our wiki page](http://scripts.mit.edu/wiki/Fedora_13)
144 ### How can I stay up to date on news about Scripts?
146 News about scripts.mit.edu is posted to our blog periodically.
147 Important announcements are e-mailed to the
148 [scripts-announce mailing list](http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/scripts-announce).
149 If you’re not already signed up for the list, please take a moment
150 to do so by clicking the link above.