Call for Gardening Tasks

[krtaylor]

On 4/10/20 9:23 AM, Joseph Reynolds wrote:
> On 4/9/20 5:19 PM, Vijay Khemka wrote:
>>
>> I can see following small tasks which need refactoring
>>
>> IPMID:
>>
>> Some of standard commands are incomplete here like “restore power 
>> policies”, some of sensors  sdrs etc.
>>
>> Dbus interface:
>>
>> Define more dbus interfaces being used in common code. I see multiple 
>> repos has these interfaces hard coded. And I agree for client side 
>> code would really be helpful.
>>
>> Phosphor package clean up:
>>
>> There are many phosphor packages in image which are added by default 
>> and lots of systemd unit are running irrespective of platform 
>> requirements.
>>
>> Documentation:
>>
>> Many repos doesn’t have proper documentations and it will be really 
>> good to add and a root level documents giving an idea about different 
>> features and mapped to multiple available repos.
>>
> 
> Can we flesh out the list of features?
> https://github.com/openbmc/docs/blob/master/features.md

Heck, can we start by simply fleshing out what devs (companies) are/have 
worked on for this release?  ;-)
https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc/wiki/Current-Release-Content

- krtaylor

> 
> The openbmc/docs repo has good stuff for developers.  Can we take it the 
> next level by adding:
> - Guide for system integrators - source and build config, signing keys, 
> etc.
> - Guide for initial BMC setup - genesis boot, discovery, configure IP, 
> certs, users, etc.
> - Guide for system admins - ongoing tasks like auditing logs, firmware 
> updates, etc.
> - Security technical implementation guide (STIG).
> 
> We've discussed these in the OpenBMC security working group, and I've 
> collected some details here:
> https://github.com/ibm-openbmc/dev/issues/1531
> 
> I would be happy to contribute to these ... just looking for someone to 
> collaborate with.  :-)
> 
>> I will add more once I remember back.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> -Vijay
>>
>> *From: *openbmc <openbmc-bounces+vijaykhemka=fb.com at lists.ozlabs.org> 
>> on behalf of Richard Hanley <rhanley at google.com>
>> *Date: *Thursday, April 9, 2020 at 2:57 PM
>> *To: *OpenBMC Maillist <openbmc at lists.ozlabs.org>
>> *Subject: *Re: Call for Gardening Tasks
>>
>> Here are some ideas I have as a wishlist for gardening/improvements.
>>
>> *Client Models for DBus*
>>
>> Right now sdbusplus does a pretty good job of making server 
>> development easy.  However, I wish we had some more tooling on the 
>> client side. I see a decent amount of repeated code around ObjectMapper.
>>
>> One way to separate concerns and cut down on boilerplate is to have a 
>> model library. A call to a model would spin off an async method call 
>> to manage the data marshalling, which would then call a lambda with a 
>> fully reified object.  This is similar in concept to the way models 
>> work in web development.
>>
>> *Unit Testing in bmcweb*
>>
>> This is pretty easy to say, and harder to do. I've been thinking a bit 
>> about how to add in unit tests without them being too fragile. (This 
>> was also something that geissonator mentioned).
>>
>> *DBus Virtualization and Playback*
>>
>> One thing that I think makes unit testing in some modules hard is that 
>> there is a high barrier around mocking DBus.  I'm not sure the best 
>> way to build this sustainably, but it would help improve our CI testing.
>>
>> *OpenAPI for Redfish*
>>
>> So far the general impression I've seen with this is that the Swagger 
>> output for OpenAPI isn't really good for C++.  Either the ergonomics 
>> aren't really good, or there is a lot of code bloat.  I'd love to have 
>> some OpenAPI bindings that work well in OpenBMC.
>>
>> *RUST!?!?*
>>
>> I'm betting a lot of people have thought about Rust. I'd love to hear 
>> what people have tried and what are the sticking points.  Any thoughts 
>> on what module/functionality could be a decent candidate for breaking 
>> ground here?
>>
> 
> We discussed the rust language in the OpenBMC security working group 
> meetings 2019-10-02
> OpenBMC security working group minutes:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b7x9BaxsfcukQDqbvZsU2ehMq4xoJRQvLxxsDUWmAOI 
> 
> 
>> -Richard
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 2:54 PM Richard Hanley <rhanley at google.com 
>> <mailto:rhanley at google.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi everyone,
>>
>>     Last week I started a thread on Open BMC Gardening
>>     
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.ozlabs.org_pipermail_openbmc_2020-2DApril_021100.html&d=DwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=v9MU0Ki9pWnTXCWwjHPVgpnCR80vXkkcrIaqU7USl5g&m=fAZZtmWl4g8Vngk56_Rs09hgS96TYQMeyRsyZKGHzAo&s=HXdHl56jq4p5eXbhyUHUkkmoF_hGh5tJWMUaVKQ68VM&e=>, 
>>
>>     and I wanted to kick off the process.
>>
>>     The basic idea here is to get a survey of various
>>     improvement tasks throughout OpenBMC.  Some things might be small
>>     refactoring or changes that can be done incrementally (i.e.
>>     weeding the garden). Other tasks might be more research or
>>     structural (i.e. excavating the garden).
>>
>>     Just getting these in writing can be helpful for others to gauge
>>     what they should focus on. It also helps leave breadcrumbs for any
>>     new developer interested in the subject.
>>
> 
> Richard,
> 
> Thanks for your efforts to move this forward.
> 
> Security wish list here: 
> https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc/wiki/Security-working-group#security-feature-wish-list 
> 
> 
> - Joseph
> 
>>     So here's how I see this working. Anyone who has some ideas can
>>     reply to this thread with a short to medium description.  Try to
>>     avoid new features, and instead look at ways we could improve the
>>     status quo. Think about changes and tools that would make your day
>>     to day life better.
>>
>>     From there we can do a write up about what we know about the
>>     issue.  This can function as an early stage design doc that gives
>>     a broad overview on where the dev's head is at right now.
>>
>>     Finally, we can do a quarterly review to keep the garden
>>     refreshed. Obviously, things can change between that time, but
>>     having a semi-regular cadence will hopefully give us a better
>>     chance of keeping this up to date.
>>
>>     - Richard
>>
>