DebConf 2024 from 28. July to 4. Aug 2024 https://debconf24.debconf.org/

Last week the annual Debian Community Conference DebConf happend in Busan, South Korea. Four NetApp employees (Michael, Andrew, Christop and Noël) participated the whole week at the Pukyong National University. The camp takes place before the conference, where the infrastructure is set up and the first collaborations take place. The camp is described in a separate article: https://www.credativ.de/en/blog/credativ-inside/debcamp-bootstrap-for-debconf24/
There was a heat wave with high humidity in Korea at the time but the venue and accommodation at the University are air conditioned so collaboration work, talks and BoF were possible under the circumstances.

Around 400 Debian enthusiasts from all over the world were onsite and additional people attended remotly with the video streaming and the Matrix online chat #debconf:matrix.debian.social

The content team created a schedule with different aspects of Debian; technical, social, political,….
https://debconf24.debconf.org/schedule/

There were two bigger announcements during DebConf24:

1. the new distribution eLxr https://elxr.org/ based on Debian initiated by Windriver
   https://debconf24.debconf.org/talks/138-a-unified-approach-for-intelligent-deployments-at-the-edge/
   Two takeaway points I understood from this talk is Windriver wants to exchange CentOS and preferes a binary distribution.
2. The Debian package management system will get a new solver https://debconf24.debconf.org/talks/8-the-new-apt-solver/

The list of interesting talks is much longer from a full conference week. Most talks and BoF were streamed live and the recordings can be found in the video archive:
https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2024/DebConf24/

It is a tradtion to have a Daytrip for socializing and get a more interesting view of the city and the country. https://wiki.debian.org/DebConf/24/DayTrip/ (sorry the details of the three Daytrip are on the website for participants).

For the annual conference group photo we have to go outsite into the heat with high humidity but I hope you will not see us sweeting.

The Debian Conference 2025 will be in July in Brest, France: https://wiki.debian.org/DebConf/25/ and we will be there.:) Maybe it will be a chance for you to join us.

See also Debian News: DebConf24 closes in Busan and DebConf25 dates announced

DebConf24 https://debconf24.debconf.org/ took place from 2024-07-28 to 2024-08–04 in Busan, Korea.

Four employees (three Debian developers) from NetApp had the opportunity to participate in the annual event, which is the most important conference in the Debian world: Christoph Senkel, Andrew Lee, Michael Meskes and Noël Köthe.

DebCamp

What is DebCamp? DebCamp usually takes place a week before DebConf begins. For participants, DebCamp is a hacking session that takes place just before DebConf. It’s a week dedicated to Debian contributors focusing on their Debian-related projects, tasks, or problems without interruptions.

DebCamps are largely self-organized since it’s a time for people to work. Some prefer to work individually, while others participate in or organize sprints. Both approaches are encouraged, although it’s recommended to plan your DebCamp week in advance.

During this DebCamp, there are the following public sprints:
Python Team Sprint: QA work on the Python Team’s packages
l10n-pt-br Team Sprint: pt-br translation
Security Tools Packaging Team Sprint: QA work on the pkg-security Team’s packages
Ruby Team Sprint: Work on the transition to Ruby 3.3
Go Team Sprint: Get newer versions of docker.io, containerd, and podman into unstable/testing
Ftpmaster Team Sprint: discuss potential changes in ftpmaster team, workflow and communication
DebConf24 Boot Camp: guide people new to debian with a focus on debian packaging
LXQt Team Sprint: Workshop for new commers and work on the latest upstream release based on Qt6 and wayland support.

Scheduled workshops include:

GPG Workshop for Newcomers:
Asymmetric cryptography is a daily tool in Debian operations, used to establish trust and secure communications through email encryption, package signing, and more. This workshop participants will learn to create a PGP key and perform essential tasks such as file encryption/decryption, content signing, and sending encrypted emails. Post-creation, the key will be uploaded to public keyservers, enabling attendees to participate in our Continuous Keysigning Party.

Creating Web Galleries with Geo-Tagged Photos:
Learn how to create a web gallery with integrated maps from a geo-tagged photo collection. The session will cover the use of fgallery, openlayers, and a custom Python script, all orchestrated by a Makefile. This method, used for a South Korea gallery in 2018, will be taught hands-on, empowering others to showcase their photo collections similarly.

Introduction to Creating .deb Files (Debian Packaging):
This session will delve into the basics of Debian packaging and the Debian release cycle, including stable, unstable, and testing branches. Attendees will set up a Debian unstable system, build existing packages from source, and learn to create a Debian package from scratch. Discussions will extend online at #debconf24-bootcamp on irc.oftc.net.

In addition to the organizational part, our colleague Andrew is part of the orga team this year. He suported to arrange Cheese and Wine party and proposed an idea to organize a “Coffee Lab” where people can bring their coffee equipments and beans from their country and share each other during the conference. Andrew successfully set up the Coffee Lab in the social space with support from the “Local Team” and contributors Kitt, Clement, and Steven. They provided a diverse selection of beans and teas from countries such as Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Peru, Taiwan, Thailand, and Guatemala. Additionally, they shared various coffee-making tools, including the “Mr. Clever Dripper,” AeroPress, and AerSpeed grinder.

It also allows the DebConf committee to work together with the local team to prepare additional details for the conference. During DebCamp, the organization team typically handles the following tasks:

Setting up the Frontdesk: This involves providing conference badges (with maps and additional information) and distributing SWAG such as food vouchers, conference t-shirts, conference cups, usb-powered fan, and sponsor gifts.
Setting up the network: This includes configuring the network in conference rooms, hack labs, and video team equipment for live streaming during the event.
Accommodation arrangements: Assigning rooms for participants to check in to on-site accommodations.
Food arrangements: Catering to various dietary requirements, including regular, vegetarian, vegan, and accommodating special religious and allergy-related needs.
Setting up a spcial space: Providing a relaxed environment for participants to socialize and get to know each other.
Writing daily announcements: Keeping participants informed about ongoing activities.
Arranging childcare service.
Organizing day trip options.
Arranging parties.

In addition to the organizational part, our colleague Andrew also attended and arranged private sprints during DebCamp and contiune through DebConf via his LXQt team BoF and LXQt team newcommer private workshop. Where the team received contribution from new commers. The youngest one is only 13 years old who created his first GPG key during the GPG key workshop and attended LXQt team workshop where he managed to fix a few bugs in Debian during the workshop session.

Young kids in DebCamp

At DebCamp, two young attendees, aged 13 and 10, participated in a GPG workshop for newcomers and created their own GPG keys. The older child hastily signed another new attendee’s key without proper verification, not fully grasping that Debian’s security relies on the trustworthiness of GPG keys. This prompted a lesson from his Debian Developer father, who explained the importance of trust by comparing it to entrusting someone with the keys to one’s home. Realizing his mistake, the child considered how to rectify the situation since he had already signed and uploaded the key. He concluded that he could revoke the old key and create a new one after DebConf, which he did, securing his new GPG and SSH keys with a Yubikey.

How and when to use Software-Defined Networks in Proxmox VE

What is Software-Defined Networking?

How to configure a SDN

Knowing the basics and possibilities of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) now, it gets interesting to set up such a network within a Proxmox cluster.

Proxmox comes with support for software-defined networking (SDN), allowing users to integrate various types of network configurations to suit their specific networking needs. With Proxmox, you have the flexibility to select from several SDN types, including “Simple”, which is likely aimed at straightforward networking setups without the need for advanced features. For environments requiring network segmentation, VLAN support is available, providing the means to isolate and manage traffic within distinct virtual LANs. More complex scenarios might benefit from QinQ support, which allows multiple VLAN tags on a single interface. Also and very interesting for data centers, Proxmox also includes VxLAN support, which extends layer 2 networking over a layer 3 infrastructure which significantly increases the number of possible VLANs which would else be limited to 4096 VLANs. Lastly to mention is the EVPN support which is also part of Proxmox’s SDN offerings, facilitating advanced layer 2 and layer 3 virtualization and providing a scalable control plane with BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) for multi-tenancy environments.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the process of setting up a streamlined Software-Defined Network (SDN) within a Proxmox Cluster environment. The primary goal is to establish a new network, including its own network configuration that is automatically propagated across all nodes within the cluster. This newly created network will created by its own IP space where virtual machines (VMs) receiving their IP addresses dynamically via DHCP. This setup eliminates the need for manual IP forwarding or Network Address Translation (NAT) on the host machines. An additional advantage of this configuration is the consistency it offers; the gateway for the VMs will always remain constant regardless of the specific host node they are operating on.

Configuration

The configuration of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) got very easy within the latest Proxmox VE versions where the whole process can be done in the Proxmox web UI. Therefore, we just connect to the Proxmox management web interface which typically reachable at:

• https://HOSTNAME:8006

The SDN options are integrated within the datacenter chapter, in the sub chapter SDN. All further work will only be done within this chapter. Therefore, we navigate to:
–> Datacenter
—-> SDN
——–> Zones

The menu on the right site offers to add a new zone where the new zone of the type Simple will be selected. A new windows pops up where we directly activate the advanced options at the bottom. Afterwards, further required details will be provided.

ID: devnet01
MTU: Auto
Nodes: All
IPAM: pve
Automatic DHCP: Activate

The ID represents the unique identifier of this zone. It might make sense to give it a recognisable name. Usually, we do not need to adjust the MTU size for this kind of default setups. However, there may always be some corner cases. In the node sections, this zone can be assigned to specific nodes or simply to all ones. There may also be scenarios where zones might only be limited to specific nodes. According to our advanced options, further details like DNS server and also the forward- & reverse zones can be defined. For this basic setup, this will not be used but the automatic DHCP option must be activated.

Now, the next steps will be done in the chapter VNets where the previously created zone will be linked to a virtual network. In the same step we will also provide additional network information like the network range etc.

When creating a new VNet, an identifier or name must be given. It often makes sense to align the virtual network name to the previously generated zone name. In this example, the same names will be used. Optionally, an alias can be defined. The important part is to select the desired zone that should be used (e.g., devnet01). After creating the new VNet, we have the possibility to create a new subnet in the same window by clicking on the Create Subnet button.

Within this dialog, some basic network information will be entered. In general, we need to provide the desired subnet in CIDR notation (e.g., 10.11.12.0/24). Defining the IP address for the gateway is also possible. In this example the gateway will be placed on the IP address 10.11.12.1. Important is to activate the option SNAT. SNAT (Source Network Address Translation) is a technique to modify the source IP address of outgoing network traffic to appear as though it originates from a different IP address, which is usually the IP address of the router or firewall. This method is commonly employed to allow multiple devices on a private network to access external networks.

After creating and linking the zone, VNet and the subnet, the configuration can simply be applied on the web interface by clicking on the apply button. The configuration will now be synced to the desired nodes (in our example all ones).

Usage

After applying the configuration on the nodes within the cluster, virtual machines must still be assigned to this network. Luckily, this can easily be done by using the regular Proxmox web interface which now also provides the newly created network devnet01 in the networking chapter of the VM. But also already present virtual machines can be assigned to this network.

When it comes to DevOps and automation, this is also available in the API where virtual machines can be assigned to the new network. Such a task could look like in the following example in Ansible:

- name: Create Container in Custom Network
community.general.proxmox:
vmid: 100
node: de01-dus01-node03
api_user: root@pam
api_password: {{ api_password }}
api_host: de01-dus01-node01
password: {{ container_password }}
hostname: {{ container_fqdn }}
ostemplate: 'local:vztmpl/debian-12-x86_64.tar.gz'
netif: '{"net0":"name=eth0,ip=dhcp,ip6=dhcp,bridge=devnet01"}'


Virtual machines assigned to this network will immediately get IP addresses within our previously defined network 10.11.12.0/24 and can access the internet without any further needs. VMs may also moved across nodes in the cluster without any needs to adjust the gateway, even a node get shut down or rebooted for maintenances.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the integration of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) into Proxmox VE represents a huge benefit from a technical, but also from a user perspective where this feature is also usable from the Proxmox’s web ui. This ease of configuration empowers even those with limited networking experience to set up and manage even more complex network setups as well.

Proxmox makes it also easier with simple SDNs to create basic networks that let virtual machines connect to the internet. You don’t have to deal with complicated settings or gateways on the main nodes. This makes it quicker to get virtual setups up and running and lowers the chance of making mistakes that could lead to security problems.

For people just starting out, Proxmox has a user friendly website that makes it easy to set up and control networks. This is really helpful because it means they don’t have to learn a lot of complicated stuff to get started. Instead, they can spend more time working with their virtual computers and not worry too much about how to connect everything.

People who know more about technology will like how Proxmox lets them set up complex networks. This is good for large scaled setups because it can make the network run better, handle more traffic, and keep different parts of the network separate from each other.

Just like other useful integrations (e.g. Ceph), also the SDN integration provides huge benefits to its user base and shows the ongoing integration of useful tooling in Proxmox.

• Tomas Vondra presented “The Past and the Future of the Postgres Community“, explaining how work on PostgreSQL changes and fixes is organized in Commitfests and discussing future development ideas within the community.
• Laurenz Albe’s talk, “Sicherheitsattacken auf PostgreSQL“, highlighted several potential attack vectors in PostgreSQL, capturing significant attention with surprising examples.
• Chris Engelbert’s presentation, “PostgreSQL on Kubernetes: Dos and Don’ts“, addressed the main issues related to running PostgreSQL on Kubernetes and discussed solutions, including pros and cons of existing PostgreSQL Kubernetes operators.
• Maurizio De Giorgi and Ismael Posada Trobo discussed “Solving PostgreSQL Connection Scalability Issues: Insights from CERN’s GitLab Service“, detailing the challenges and solutions for scalability in CERN’s vast database environment.
• Dirk Krautschick’s talk, “Warum sich PostgreSQL-Fans auch für Kafka und Debezium interessieren sollten?“, showcased examples of using Debezium connectors and Kafka with PostgreSQL for various use cases, including data migrations.
• Patrick Stählin discussed “Wie wir einen Datenkorruptions-Bug mit der Hilfe der Community gefunden und gefixt haben,” addressing issues with free space map files after migration to PostgreSQL 16.
• Marion Baumgartner’s presentation, “Geodaten-Management mit PostGIS,” provided interesting details about processing geo-data in PostgreSQL using the PostGIS extension.
• Prof. Stefan Keller, one of the main organizers and a professor of Data Engineering at Rapperswil OST University, presented “PostgreSQL: A Reliable and Extensible Multi-Model SQL Database“, discussing the multi-model structure of PostgreSQL amid declining interest in NoSQL solutions.
• Luigi Nardi from DBTune presented “Lessons Learned from Autotuning PostgreSQL“, describing an AI-based performance tuning tool developed by his company.
• Kanhaiya Lal and Belma Canik delved into “Beyond Keywords: AI-powered Text Search with pgvector for PostgreSQL,” exploring the use of the pgvector extension to enhance full-text search capabilities in PostgreSQL.
• Gabriele Bartolini, the creator of the PostgreSQL Kubernetes Operator “CloudNativePG,” discussed the history and capabilities of this operator in his talk, “Unleashing the Power of PostgreSQL in Kubernetes“.

From April, 18th until Friday, 21st the KubeCon in combination with the CloudNativeCon took place in Amsterdam: COMMUNITY IN BLOOM. An exciting event for people with interest in Kubernetes and cloud native technologies.

At credativ, it is must to pre-train us in many relevant areas. This of course includes Kubernetes and Cloud Native technologies. The KubeCon/Cloud Native Con has been one of the conferences on our must-attend list for several years now.

A short diary

We started our journey to the KubeCon by Tuesday evening with the badge pickups. On Wednesday the Keynotes started with the usual welcome words and opening remarks.

The information that 10000 attendees have been registered with additional 2000 people on the wait list was really impressive and shows the importance of Cloud Native technologies. Nearly 58% of the attendees were new to the conference which proves that more and more people get in touch with Kubernetes and Co.

In addition to the common sponsored keynotes a short update of the CNCF graduated projects was presented. There was a wide variation of projects. From FluxCD to Prometheus, Linkerd, Harbor and many more.

The second day started once again with keynotes which included several project updates e.g. Kubernetes and incubating projects.

The last day as usual opened with keynotes. A highlight here was the presentation “Enabling Real-Time Media in Kubernetes” which gave some insights about a Media Streaming Mesh.

Supplemental to the talks and presentations some tutorials happened. Those tutorials usually take at least two time slots and therefore, provide a deeper insight into a specific topic and left room for questions. The tutorials we visited were well prepared and several people were cruising through the attendees to help and answer questions. One of those tutorials showed the usage and benefits of Pixie which provides deep insights into a system using eBPF and various open source projects.

Beyond the tracks a booth location was available, it has been divided (by halls) to the company related booths and an area with projects. NetApp was represented at several booths.

The main theme this year seemed to be all about eBPF and Cilium. Various presentations on different tracks highlighted this topic and showed areas of application for eBPF. Different Cilium talks presented various aspects of Cilium for e.g. observability or multi-cluster connections and application failover.

Not so good

One bad thing has to be mentioned. Some talks were full. Really full. To some of them we got no access due to the fact, that the room was filled 15-30 minutes before the talk started. Maybe it would be possible for the next time to ask all users to create a personal schedule in the corresponding app and reassign the rooms by the amount of interested (scheduled) people.

Keynotes, Talks and Presentations

A short overview about the (visited) highlights of the talks and presentations:

• “Improve Vulnerability Management with OCI Artifacts – It Is That Easy” a great talk about images and artifacts related to trivy
• “Anatomy of a Cloud Security Breach – 7 deadly sins” – a short recap of really occured security breaches. Nothing unknown but a good comprehension.
• “Creating a Culture of Documentation” – about integrating the documentation process and creating a culture.
• “Kubernetes Defense Monitoring with Prometheus” – an encouraging presentation about the usage of metrics
• “Breakpoints in Your Pod: Interactively Debugging Kubernetes Applications” – a great talk about requirements and how to achieve debugging in pods
• “Effortless Open Source Observability with Cilium, Prometheus and Grafana – LGTM!” Highlighting the observability features from Cilium and service dependency maps with Hubble.

Conclusion

As always, the conference was worthwhile for gaining new impressions, having exchange with interesting people and expanding one’s knowledge. We were certainly happy to participate are already looking forward to attending the next KubeCon.

In November 1999, 20 years ago, credativ GmbH was founded in Germany, and thus laid the first foundation for the current credativ group.

At that time, Dr. Michael Meskes and Jörg Folz started the business operations in the Technology Centre of Jülich, Germany. Our mission has always been to not only work to live, but also to live to work, because we love the work we do. Our aim is to support widespread use of open source software and to ensure independence from software vendors.

Furthermore, it is very important for us to support and remain active in open source communities. Since 1999 we have continuously taken part in PostgreSQL and Debian events, and supported them financially with sponsorships. Additionally, the development of the Linux operating system has also been a dear and important project of ours. Therefore, we have been a member of the Linux Foundation for over 10 years.

In 2006 we opened our Open Source Support Center. Here, for the first time, our customers had the opportunity to get the support for their entire Open Source infrastructure with just one contract. Since then we have expanded and included different locations into a globally operating Open Source Support Center.

Thanks to our healthy and steady growth, credativ grew to over 35 employees at its worldwide locations by our 10th anniversary.

Since then, the founding of credativ international GmbH in 2013 marked another milestone in credativ’s history, as the focus shifted from a local to a global market. We were also able to expand into different countries such as the USA and India.

We have grown now to over 80 employees, with 20 years of company history. credativ is now one of the leading providers of services and support for open source software in enterprise use. We thank our customers, business partners, and employees for their time together.

This Artikel was originally written by Philip Haas.