[AG-TECH] Any word on Ubuntu and Python 2.7?

[Christoph Willing]

On 22/02/2012, at 4:06 PM, Gabriel Noronha wrote:

> ----
> Gabriel Noronha
> Access Grid Support Officer
> University of Newcastle
>>>> Christoph Willing <c.willing at uq.edu.au> 19/02/12 9:32 PM >>>
>
> On 18/02/2012, at 4:08 AM, Kevin Cole wrote:
>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I just added another machine to our "posse" / "harem" / "commune",
>>> and since it was a fresh install, I installed Oneiric (11.10).  And
>>> then, when things behaved oddly, I saw this on the University of
>>> Queensland's site:
>>>
>>> "Can't access ANL venue server. Actually, the connection is partial
>>> - connected venues are visible but media and jabber text services
>>> aren't started correctly. Interestingly, other venue servers, e.g.
>>> APAG, can be connected to OK. The issue appears to be related to the
>>> Python version being used in the client systems; up to python2.6
>>> appears OK, while python2.7 (on Oneiric, Natty & Fedora 14) have the
>>> connection problem."
>>>
>>> With a Long Term Support (LTS) release coming up in a couple of
>>> months, I was planning to upgrade all of my machines to that,
>>> including the AG3 computers that are currently doing fine.  Any
>>> details on what makes Python 2.7 not tick?  (I've got some stuff
>>> moving into the 3.x version. So, it seems 2.6 is getting a bit long
>>> in the tooth.)
>>
>>
>> I believe the problem is in the jabber code - on entering a venue,  
>> one
>> of the VenueClient's tasks is to create and/or enter a jabber room
>> with the same name as the venue. This fails with python 2.7 (for some
>> reason) and prevents set up of the media tools, vic and rat.
>>
>> I've verified this on a python 2.7 system by disabling text chat
>> completely in the VenueClient.py and VenueCLientUI.py, after which  
>> I'm
>> able to fully enter previously troublesome venues.
>>
>> Although that appears to identify where the problem lies, the problem
>> still needs to be fixed - I'm not sure who has time to look at that.
>
>
> I had a quick look at the jabber code because i was hoping to reuse  
> it awhile ago... and basically it use a library that has been  
> abandoned. bajjer is the library and a google search seems to lead  
> to nothing but 404s
>
> it's probably something that really needs to be ear marked as  
> needing a complete rewrite or swapping to a different protocol with  
> better library support IRC for example.

Interesting that you suggest a different protocol because I've been  
thinking about exactly that for a while now. A particular possibility  
(because I've used it elsewhere) is MQTT (http://mqtt.org/) for which  
there is an open source version "mosquitto" (at http://mosquitto.org/)  
which already has a python binding. I've made a simple standalone chat  
app with it using wxPython for the gui as a proof of concept and it  
seems to work really well. It probably wouldn't take too much effort  
to use something like that to replace the existing jabber based text  
chat.

The only drawback that I can see is that the MQTT based replacement  
would be completely incompatible with the jabber version. Someone  
could write a MQTT <-> XMTT gateway I guess ...


> saying that with the picture in your first email i assumed you would  
> be nothing but RHEL boxes..

Between us, Doug & I have most of the Linux variants covered.


chris


Christoph Willing              +61 7 3365 8316
Research Computing Centre
University of Queensland