Fighting InstitutionalMemory Loss

Integrated Issue and SolutionTracking with Trackle

Dan Crosta

15-Nov-2006 2

The SCCS

Swarthmore College Computer SocietyPublic Linux/OS X multimedia labUNIX shell acctsWeb space, WikisMailing listsVideo & still cams

15-Nov-2006 3

Student Sysadmins

SCCS: unique needs as UNIX admins– Lots of us– Kind of clueless– Few regular hours– Always other or better things to do – Self-reporting stinks:

rm –rf ~/bin vs. rm –rf /bin

15-Nov-2006 4

Partial Solutions: Email

Do some work

Get distracted by something shiny

Maybe remember what you did

Maybe email staff to say what you did

15-Nov-2006 5

Partial Solution: Wiki

Do some work

Write it down as you go

Get distracted by something shiny

Maybe email staff to say you did something and here’s a link to it

15-Nov-2006 6

Partial Solution: Ticket System

Create a ticket

Do some work

Record your changes as a ticket annotation

Get distracted by something shiny

Maybe remember to email staff to say you did something and here’s a link

15-Nov-2006 7

We Need MoreRecord all sysadminly actions:– Who, exactly what and how, when

Records accessible from the web– Because we do everything on the web– Allow arbitrary annotation to improve

clarity to future generations

Not ugly– Get distracted by something shiny and useful

15-Nov-2006 8

Trackle

Web- and console-facing tools

Automatic recording of system changes

Minimalistic approach stays out of the way

Integrated Wiki

Automatic notification to staff

Users may subscribe to ticket updates

Appropriate support for staff and end-users

15-Nov-2006 9

Trackle Architecture

Database

Web Interface

Console Tools

Email System

ShellTracking

15-Nov-2006 10

Web Interface

Supports 2 user classes: anonymous “users” and authenticated “staff”– Both: ticket creation, viewing– Staff only: ticket editing, shell sessions

Integrated Wiki, Timeline, Milestones

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Web Interface: Tickets

15-Nov-2006 12

Web Interface: Tickets

15-Nov-2006 13

Web Interface: Shell Sessions

15-Nov-2006 14

Web Interface

Wiki pages: public & private

Wiki areas in all web components

Milestones for ticket organization

Timeline for tracking actions

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Console Tools

GUI-like interface for creation, viewing, editing

Start shell tracking session

Provides subset of web functionality

15-Nov-2006 16

Shell Session Tracking Shell /

trackle-cli

Program Code

System Libraries

fopen()chmod()...

libtrackle Session State

To db viatrackle-cli

15-Nov-2006 17

Shell Session Tracking

trackle-cli records cmds, environment

trackle-cli loads libtrackle with LD_PRELOAD

libtrackle tracks file-related system calls: fopen, chmod, unlink, etc

State directory used for IPC from libtrackle to parent trackle-cli process

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Shell Session Tracking

15-Nov-2006 19

Email System

Email confirmation for user creation

Staff notified when a ticket is confirmed

Users may add selves to watcher list– With email confirmation

Staff, watchers notified of status changes

Cron script for periodic staff reminders

15-Nov-2006 20

Future Plans

Private tickets

Ticket due dates

Ticket relationships (parent/child, “depends on”, etc)

Incremental file diffs & version tracking

Multiple machine support

High-level abstractions: free tagging

LISA ’06 Paper

15-Nov-2006 21

Thanks!

Currently in use at the SCCSOpen Source (BSD License)Currently under active development (you can help!)Thanks to Ben Kuperman, Mustafa Paksoy for AudlibThanks to Edgwall Software & contributors for TracPrevious names: wicket, twiki