Call for Volunteer(s) to be postmaster at baylisa.org

Mon Sep 28 09:19:14 PDT 2009

Would you like to be able to claim successful email infrastructure
migration on your resume?  If so, read on....

I've been (primary) postmaster at baylisa.org since Feb 2001.

For various reasons (mentioned below), I believe the time is approaching
for me to step down from that role.  

Rather than merely abandoning the post (no pun intended), though, I
thought it might be useful for me to volunteer to provide some guidance
& mentoring for the next postmaster(s) for BayLISA as a significant part
of the transition -- asuming that those involved want that, of course.

Historically, the infrastructure we (BayLISA) have been using has
been not-very-current: it's sendmail 8.14.2 & majordomo 1.94.5 (with
a patch I cobbled up) running under Solaris 9 as of the moment.  (I
had been running ClamAV for a while, but was unable to get it to
build after an update -- and I just don't do much with Solaris
outside of BayLISA any more.)

And while there are several folks knownn to sysadmin community who
have forgotten more about running mail systems than I'll ever know,
I believe I have a bit to offer as to historical perspective(s) and
how things work.

The Board is working on deploying some more recent hardware running a
more recent OS.  I believe this would be an excellent opportunity to
implement some more recent software for the mail infrastructure, as well:
the existing system, while rather clunky, does work, sofailure to get
the new system completely functional within a particular time fram
doesn't cause BayLISA mail to be lost.

It would also provide an opportunity for the others involved to get some
exposure to migrating the mail infrastructure from sendmail+majordomo to
some other software.  (For example, I now have much more exposure to
Postfix than I had in the first several years of being postmaster.  If
you want a discussion of pros & cons of either, volunteer -- I don't
plan to do that either here on the list or at a meeting.  I've also had
some exposure to qmaill, and if you want to know the details of why I
would never, ever recommend the use of qmail for anything, same drill:
volunteer.)

As for other reasons for me to step down:  in my current position (since
Feb 2008), I am -- for the first time in about 3 decades -- not actually
a sysadmin (well, except at home).  And I believe it's time to turn the
job over to ... well, fresher blood:  I was born in 1951; you can do the
math.

Some thoughts on the role of BayLISA postmaster (to help in the
decision-making):

* I believe it is appropriate for (one of) the postmaster(s) to sit in
  on BayLISA board meetings to provide input as desired by the Board.  I
  do not, however, believe it is appropriate for a postmaster at baylisa.org
  to actually be a voting member of the Board, as I belieeve it is best
  to have some separation between those who make policy (the Board) vs.
  those who implement it (e.g., postmaster).  Having postmaster not be on
  the Baord also provides a constructive example to demonstrate that it
  is not necessary to be on the Board to have an active role in
  supporting BayLISA.

* The BayLISA lists are (very!) low-volume -- some have not seen
  activity in years.

* While I created some "archives" (of a sort), they are not readily
  accessible, so they are not very useful for BayLISA members, in
  general.  It would probably be good for the new infrastructure to
  address this.  Whether the archives should be available only to
  members, to everyone, or for a mixed approach (e.g., members-only for
  the first year, then open to everyone) is a decision that shoul dbe
  made by the Board with input from the postmaster (regarding what is
  technically feasible).

* I expect that the bulk of the work will be in the transition, and the
  day-to-day involvement will be fairly low, depending on the natire of
  the new infrastructure.

Please contact me with questions or to volunteer.  I'd like to get
things started before the Board elections in November.

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil.

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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