Re: [savannah-help-public] "Sysadmin volunteers to help with underlying infrastructure support"

[Bob Proulx]

Hi Ethan,

Ethan Henderson wrote:
> Hello, my name is Ethan Henderson, and I saw on the GNU help page that you
> guys could use a systems admin to "help with underlying infrastructure
> support," and would like to offer my help, if I can.

Great!  Many hands make light work.  Thanks for volunteering!

> I have little experience administrating systems, I do have basic experience
> with Ubuntu, I'm a fast learner, I do know a lot of PHP/SQL, and I have a
> desire to help.
> 
> I don't know what all the position requires, but maybe I can fill it, just
> let me know :)

There are many different facets of tasks for helping the Savannah
software forge and the GNU Project.  All could use some love and
attention.  A few of them in particular could use some help.

* Reviewing project submissions.  There is often a long backlog and
reviewers are always needed there.  See this page for a HOWTO on what
needs to be done there.  This is an area where anyone could be very
useful volunteering.
    http://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/HowToBecomeASavannahHacker/

* Savannah PHP development.  Since you mentioned PHP/SQL this might be
something that would interest you.  In particular there is some
concern that when the present Savane software forge was written that
the security attacks on the net now weren't known then.  There has
been some discussion recently about possible security vulnerabilities.

We could use someone to look at the current Savane / Savannah PHP code
with an eye toward security.  As well as adding features and fixing
other bugs.  Would you be interested in improving the Savannah PHP?

This could be done by different ways.  One is to review the source
code and fix bugs and improve it.  The Savannah source code is
available for git cloning.  Look at the Savannah defect tracker and
look for unresolved bugs for things that need to be done.  Submit
patches to fix them.
    git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/administration/savane

Another way is to try to use security analysis tools such as plugins
to Firefox and others such as "XSS Me" and "Tamper Data" and others
that are designed for security penetration testing.  And I am sure
there are other tools too.  This requires someone familiar with web
security issues.  And then of course any problems found will need to
be fixed.

* Subscribe to this mailing list.  (savannah-hackers-public.)  I
checked just now and didn't see your address on it.  That is why I
CC'd you specifically.  Normally we would just list-reply back to the
list.  Subscribe so that you can communicate with the rest of us and
us with you.  There are a confusing number of lists for this and that.
Initially the savannah-hackers-public is where you want to start.
    https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/SavannahHackersCommunication/

Sound good?  Questions?  Ask on the mailing list.  Thanks!
Bob