Server Team Status Report — September 2022

Categories: Community
How is typo3.org doing? The Server Team monitors the server to make sure all is well.
Like any internal IT department, inquiries come across our desk day in and day out. Most often, we’re helping end-users and community members when they encounter a problem with our infrastructure, for example, logging in to their TYPO3 account.

The other main call on our time is actioning requests from former community members who want their data destroyed (according to the terms of the GDPR) from all systems within the TYPO3 universe.

Sprint Participation

This year, we've finally been able to meet in person again. We participated in three community sprints in Düsseldorf, and had another internal sprint in Switzerland. It's been magnificent to meet not only our fellow team members, but also all the other people of our community again. The community sprints have been especially useful to tackle projects that required collaboration with other teams.

Achievements

Among other things, over the last few months we have completed the following projects:

  • Streamlined the GDPR process with our data protection officer.
  • Participated in the internal data protection awareness training.
  • Migrated and updated our user directory based on OpenLDAP (LDAP to Docker and Migrate).
  • Migrated Pootle to a container-based setup (Pootle to Docker and Migrate).
  • Replaced our HTTP error pages with a new template provided by the Design Team -  thanks folks!
  • Fixed a flaw in our mail servers API, after the Security Team was notified about the potential problem.
  • Provided a plain TYPO3 installation to the Accessibility team, where disabled persons can apply and test Gerrit patches easily (TYPO3 Installation to Test Patches).
  • Enabled DNSSEC on our main domain, typo3.org.
  • Updated Redmine to the current major version 5.0, added a new theme, cleaned up a lot of outdated code to simplify this and future updates and archived all projects except for the core bug tracker (Upgrade to Redmine v5.0.2).
  • Prepared Gerrit to update to next major version 3.6 (Upgrade to v3.6.2).
  • Evaluated and installed an open-source newsletter system. This will replace the current TYPO3 announce/security mailing list in the future, and does allow us to sunset the Mailman infrastructure afterwards (Evaluate Newsletter Tool).
  • Added Renovate to our GitLab instance to help ourselves and other teams manage external dependencies.

Join and Follow Us

During the year, we see each other in monthly video calls to coordinate our tasks. These meetings are public and everyone is welcome to join us for questions or even just to say hello. Every few months, we meet each other in person at one of the community sprints, or in some other location.

We aim for open communication and processes. You can follow our work in GitLab, on our Status Page, and on Twitter.

If you're interested in infrastructure topics, feel free to reach out to us, and we're looking forward to welcoming you at one of our next sprints.