1. Important repositories
  2. Documentation
  3. GitLab
  4. Monitoring
  5. SSH access
  6. Mailing lists

Important repositories

We have a meta-repository that documents all important repositories. During the onboarding process, you should receive a signed copy of the known_hosts file in that repository to bootstrap trust on those SSH server.

Documentation

See our role description as it gives insight on the way we currently organize. Check the pages linked from there for info about services and some important pages in GitLab which we need to keep an eye on.

Besides that, we also have documentation in the tails/sysadmin-private repository:

  • This is an encrypted repository: you need to have git-remote-crypt installed before cloning it AND run some commands from the README as soon as you clone it.

  • It contains emergency contacts, doc on some of our proceses, meeting notes, and info about machines and upstream providers.

GitLab

Historically, Sysadmin and Development in Tails were very coupled, and even though this has been slowly changing it still reflects in our use of GitLab:

Monitoring

We use Icinga2 with the Icingaweb2 web interface. The shared passphrase can be found in the Password Store (see the Important repositories section).

pass tails-sysadmins/services/icingaweb2.tails.boum.org/icingaadmin

SSH access

Once you have confirmed the known_hosts file (see the Important repositories section), you can fetch a list of all hosts from the Puppet Server:

ssh -p 3005 lizard.tails.net sudo puppetserver ca list --all

You can also fetch SSH fingerprints for know hosts:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh/tails
scp -P 3005 lizard.tails.net:/etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts ~/.ssh/tails/known_hosts

An example SSH config file can be seen in sysadmin-private.git:systems/ssh_config.

All public systems are reachable via the tails.net namespace and, once inside, all private VMs are accessible via their hostnames and FQDNs. TCP forwaring works so you can use any public system as a jumphost.

Physical servers and VMs hosted by third-parties have OOB access, and such instructions can be found in sysadmin-private.git:systems/.

Mailing lists

We currently use the following mailing lists:

  • sysadmins at tails.net, a Schleuder list used for:
    • accounts in external services
    • communication with upstream providers
    • general requests (eg. GitLab accounts, occasional bug reports)
    • cron reports which eventually need acting upon
  • tails-notifications at lists.puscii.nl, used for Icinga2 notifications