Update to CAcert services Rehosting May Plan 2008
Details of the Plan and actions: Rehosting/CRdayPlanning .
The May Plan can be found here: May Plan (pdf).
This is from the email sent to board on 1st of September 2008, and cc'd to critical members of critical systems dutch team, board, and auditor. The content of this email has been discussed over this weekend with the Board and Ian.
This email is a new timetable for the planning as expressed in the May Plan 2008 and an immediate call for effectiveness of actions. The move of the critical systems to Holland and the necessary actions and preparations for the final migration are critical. This plan is the last chance at this.
Thanks to Wytze for his help so far. There is a need to quick response as Wytze will be on holiday (3-25th). Starting this Wednesday, until the end of September, so we must coordinate now.
Expert preparations from Vienna by Philipp has to start now. For this and to explain the severeness of this situation I will ask Ian to have a face to face meeting with Philipp this week. If there are any issues that come to light in this meeting, I will travel to Vienna to deal with them directly.
The May Plan schedule (page 7) is at end of email for comparison and documentation of the steps that should have been taken. The work done by Wytze has been far more than was anticipated by the May Plan. I believe that the migration is now in danger of not being completed by the end of October, which will run the risk of termination.
To catch up with our deadlines, the following is an adjustment to the schedule:
- Current status at BIT:
- 2 Tunix machines: one has 2 x 300G. One has 2 x 40G drives.
- Debian is running on both.
- Both accessible via SSH and via console.
- CAcert software is installed on both machines. Status is that software installation is not complete, but only as far as was possible with the information and time available Wytze had.
Step 1: Get latest information on preparations for configuration and pre-installment work done by Wytze so far by Philipp in order to complete the work.
- Must be done Monday, Tuesday 1,2 September. Action: *Philipp*. Involves Wytze briefing Philipp on what has been done. Wytze is meeting Mendel Monday 1 Sept 2008 afternoon. Wytze will brief Mendel on his work and experiences so far in order to support Philipp locally. Action: *Teus*. Involves Wytze and Mendel.
Step 2: Philipp is to install (or finish off) all of the software to the configuration required for CAcert services, and prepare the data for migration.
- This step will be complete when the machines are ready for the data migration, and a disk with secured data is in hand (or equivalent). Action: *Philipp*. Mendel and Oophaga to stand by for any emergency visits to BIT. Must be completed before 1st October.
Step 3: Final migration. 1st October to 8th October. In Netherlands.
- All are to meet and complete the final migration of the data from Vienna to Netherlands. Action: *all*. Meeting in Holland with Philipp, Ian, Wytze, Teus and Mendel. Details [accomodation etc] to be worked out quickly by Teus.)
Conclusions
Completion of step 3 will bring us back in sync with the deadline of the May Plan. The final installation of CAcert data at servers with BIT will include the servers in Vienna being shut down, and service to the community will be off for as long as Step 3 takes.
Step 3 must be done but will be blocked if Step 1 and Step 2 do not happen.
In the event that Steps 1-3 do not happen, it is still our intention to stop the Vienna services by the end of October 2008 (deadline May Plan). If this plan (Step 1-3) fails, the CAcert board will prepare the formal decision to stop the CA services and take formal actions on that decision (eg announcements, destruction of data records, revocations). The decision will be presented for ratification at the AGM.
Hopefully this final intention will not happen.
Teus Hagen president of board CAcert
MAY PLAN page 7 The following time schedule and milestones are planned:
- Signing server protocol review completed, exercised and tried in operational environment in Vienna ended 15^th of July 2008
- Signing server protocol installed at BIT in test ending by 15^th of August 2008. Involvement of Wytze and maybe Brenno for briefing how to deal with emergencies. Oophaga Foundation is assisting for dual control.
- Involves travel by Philipp to Ede.
- Optionally: If needed prepare rack space in Ede and extra server buy. Ending end of July 2008.
- Document server configurations and administration tasks for move and setup Ending 15^th of July 2008.
- Domain name transfer to IP numbers from BIT (DNS TTL decrease, transfer).
- PR plan preparation for new Root Key installation on 15^th of August.
- Test servers ready to switch over. Ending 10^th of August 2008.
- Migrate data securely to Holland. Ending 14^th of August 2008.
- Switch over to BIT fully. Redirect domain name to Ede at 13/14^th of August 2008.
- Installation of Root Key at 15^th of August 2008. Controlled by auditor, Oophaga, and CAcert.
- Involves travel of Ian and Philipp to Ede.
- 15^th of October 2008 evaluation of critical systems operations. First long term critical system engineers are starting to take over system management.
- Involves a final meeting and get CAcert critical team acquainted to each other.
- 31^st of October 2008 dead line of completion of CAcert services move to Holland.