Description
The SUSE Manager (SUMA) teams' main tool for infrastructure automation, Sumaform, largely relies on terraform-provider-libvirt. That provider is also widely used by other teams, both inside and outside SUSE.
It would be good to help the maintainers of this project and give back to the community around it, after all the amazing work that has been already done.
If you're interested in any of infrastructure automation, Terraform, virtualization, tooling development, Go (...) it is also a good chance to learn a bit about them all by putting your hands on an interesting, real-use-case and complex project.
Goals
- Get more familiar with Terraform provider development and libvirt bindings in Go
- Solve some issues and/or implement some features
- Get in touch with the community around the project
Resources
Looking for hackers with the skills:
This project is part of:
Hack Week 24 Hack Week 25
Activity
Comments
-
about 1 year ago by pinvernizzi | Reply
Hackweek 24 results
Our infra is currently undergoing a migration to the latest version of the provider ( v0.8.1)
Investigated some issues:
- https://github.com/dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt/issues/1033
- https://github.com/dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt/issues/1091
Opened some PRs upstream (waiting for reviews):
- https://github.com/dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt/pull/1131 (Feat: Add CPU model and topology support)
- https://github.com/dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt/pull/1126 (Enhancement: Add domain title property)
- https://github.com/dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt/pull/1122 (Feat: non-destructive increase of a storage volume size)
Overall, I'm way more confident in fixing or implementing features on the project, putting in some work.
Similar Projects
Create a go module to wrap happy-compta.fr by cbosdonnat
Description
https://happy-compta.fr is a tool for french work councils simple book keeping. While it does the job, it has no API to work with and it is tedious to enter loads of operations.
Goals
Write a go client module to be used as an API to programmatically manipulate the tool.
Writing an example tool to load data from a CSV file would be good too.
Add support for todo.sr.ht to git-bug by mcepl
Description
I am a big fan of distributed issue tracking and the best (and possibly) only credible such issue tracker is now git-bug. It has bridges to another centralized issue trackers, so user can download (and modify) issues on GitHub, GitLab, Launchpad, Jira). I am also a fan of SourceHut, which has its own issue tracker, so I would like it bridge the two. Alas, I don’t know much about Go programming language (which the git-bug is written) and absolutely nothing about GraphQL (which todo.sr.ht uses for communication). AI to the rescue. I would like to vibe code (and eventually debug and make functional) bridge to the SourceHut issue tracker.
Goals
Functional fix for https://github.com/git-bug/git-bug/issues/1024
Resources
- anybody how actually understands how GraphQL and authentication on SourceHut (OAuth2) works
Play with the userfaultfd(2) system call and download on demand using HTTP Range Requests with Golang by rbranco
Description
The userfaultfd(2) is a cool system call to handle page faults in user-space. This should allow me to list the contents of an ISO or similar archive without downloading the whole thing. The userfaultfd(2) part can also be done in theory with the PROT_NONE mprotect + SIGSEGV trick, for complete Unix portability, though reportedly being slower.
Goals
- Create my own library for userfaultfd(2) in Golang.
- Create my own library for HTTP Range Requests.
- Complete portability with Unix.
- Benchmarks.
- Contribute some tests to LTP.
Resources
- https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/mm/userfaultfd.html
- https://www.cons.org/cracauer/cracauer-userfaultfd.html
Help Create A Chat Control Resistant Turnkey Chatmail/Deltachat Relay Stack - Rootless Podman Compose, OpenSUSE BCI, Hardened, & SELinux by 3nd5h1771fy
Description
The Mission: Decentralized & Sovereign Messaging
FYI: If you have never heard of "Chatmail", you can visit their site here, but simply put it can be thought of as the underlying protocol/platform decentralized messengers like DeltaChat use for their communications. Do not confuse it with the honeypot looking non-opensource paid for prodect with better seo that directs you to chatmailsecure(dot)com
In an era of increasing centralized surveillance by unaccountable bad actors (aka BigTech), "Chat Control," and the erosion of digital privacy, the need for sovereign communication infrastructure is critical. Chatmail is a pioneering initiative that bridges the gap between classic email and modern instant messaging, offering metadata-minimized, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communication that is interoperable and open.
However, unless you are a seasoned sysadmin, the current recommended deployment method of a Chatmail relay is rigid, fragile, difficult to properly secure, and effectively takes over the entire host the "relay" is deployed on.
Why This Matters
A simple, host agnostic, reproducible deployment lowers the entry cost for anyone wanting to run a privacy‑preserving, decentralized messaging relay. In an era of perpetually resurrected chat‑control legislation threats, EU digital‑sovereignty drives, and many dangers of using big‑tech messaging platforms (Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Google Messages, etc...) for any type of communication, providing an easy‑to‑use alternative empowers:
- Censorship resistance - No single entity controls the relay; operators can spin up new nodes quickly.
- Surveillance mitigation - End‑to‑end OpenPGP encryption ensures relay operators never see plaintext.
- Digital sovereignty - Communities can host their own infrastructure under local jurisdiction, aligning with national data‑policy goals.
By turning the Chatmail relay into a plug‑and‑play container stack, we enable broader adoption, foster a resilient messaging fabric, and give developers, activists, and hobbyists a concrete tool to defend privacy online.
Goals
As I indicated earlier, this project aims to drastically simplify the deployment of Chatmail relay. By converting this architecture into a portable, containerized stack using Podman and OpenSUSE base container images, we can allow anyone to deploy their own censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving communications node in minutes.
Our goal for Hack Week: package every component into containers built on openSUSE/MicroOS base images, initially orchestrated with a single container-compose.yml (podman-compose compatible). The stack will:
- Run on any host that supports Podman (including optimizations and enhancements for SELinux‑enabled systems).
- Allow network decoupling by refactoring configurations to move from file-system constrained Unix sockets to internal TCP networking, allowing containers achieve stricter isolation.
- Utilize Enhanced Security with SELinux by using purpose built utilities such as udica we can quickly generate custom SELinux policies for the container stack, ensuring strict confinement superior to standard/typical Docker deployments.
- Allow the use of bind or remote mounted volumes for shared data (
/var/vmail, DKIM keys, TLS certs, etc.). - Replace the local DNS server requirement with a remote DNS‑provider API for DKIM/TXT record publishing.
By delivering a turnkey, host agnostic, reproducible deployment, we lower the barrier for individuals and small communities to launch their own chatmail relays, fostering a decentralized, censorship‑resistant messaging ecosystem that can serve DeltaChat users and/or future services adopting this protocol
Resources
- The links included above
- https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/
- https://delta.chat/en/help
- Project repo -> https://codeberg.org/EndShittification/containerized-chatmail-relay
SUSE Health Check Tools by roseswe
SUSE HC Tools Overview
A collection of tools written in Bash or Go 1.24++ to make life easier with handling of a bunch of tar.xz balls created by supportconfig.
Background: For SUSE HC we receive a bunch of supportconfig tar balls to check them for misconfiguration, areas for improvement or future changes.
Main focus on these HC are High Availability (pacemaker), SLES itself and SAP workloads, esp. around the SUSE best practices.
Goals
- Overall improvement of the tools
- Adding new collectors
- Add support for SLES16
Resources
csv2xls* example.sh go.mod listprodids.txt sumtext* trails.go README.md csv2xls.go exceltest.go go.sum m.sh* sumtext.go vercheck.py* config.ini csvfiles/ getrpm* listprodids* rpmdate.sh* sumxls* verdriver* credtest.go example.py getrpm.go listprodids.go sccfixer.sh* sumxls.go verdriver.go
docollall.sh* extracthtml.go gethostnamectl* go.sum numastat.go cpuvul* extractcluster.go firmwarebug* gethostnamectl.go m.sh* numastattest.go cpuvul.go extracthtml* firmwarebug.go go.mod numastat* xtr_cib.sh*
$ getrpm -r pacemaker
>> Product ID: 2795 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 x86_64), RPM Name:
+--------------+----------------------------+--------+--------------+--------------------+
| Package Name | Version | Arch | Release | Repository |
+--------------+----------------------------+--------+--------------+--------------------+
| pacemaker | 2.1.10+20250718.fdf796ebc8 | x86_64 | 150700.3.3.1 | sle-ha/15.7/x86_64 |
| pacemaker | 2.1.9+20250410.471584e6a2 | x86_64 | 150700.1.9 | sle-ha/15.7/x86_64 |
+--------------+----------------------------+--------+--------------+--------------------+
Total packages found: 2
SUSE Health Check Tools by roseswe
SUSE HC Tools Overview
A collection of tools written in Bash or Go 1.24++ to make life easier with handling of a bunch of tar.xz balls created by supportconfig.
Background: For SUSE HC we receive a bunch of supportconfig tar balls to check them for misconfiguration, areas for improvement or future changes.
Main focus on these HC are High Availability (pacemaker), SLES itself and SAP workloads, esp. around the SUSE best practices.
Goals
- Overall improvement of the tools
- Adding new collectors
- Add support for SLES16
Resources
csv2xls* example.sh go.mod listprodids.txt sumtext* trails.go README.md csv2xls.go exceltest.go go.sum m.sh* sumtext.go vercheck.py* config.ini csvfiles/ getrpm* listprodids* rpmdate.sh* sumxls* verdriver* credtest.go example.py getrpm.go listprodids.go sccfixer.sh* sumxls.go verdriver.go
docollall.sh* extracthtml.go gethostnamectl* go.sum numastat.go cpuvul* extractcluster.go firmwarebug* gethostnamectl.go m.sh* numastattest.go cpuvul.go extracthtml* firmwarebug.go go.mod numastat* xtr_cib.sh*
$ getrpm -r pacemaker
>> Product ID: 2795 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 x86_64), RPM Name:
+--------------+----------------------------+--------+--------------+--------------------+
| Package Name | Version | Arch | Release | Repository |
+--------------+----------------------------+--------+--------------+--------------------+
| pacemaker | 2.1.10+20250718.fdf796ebc8 | x86_64 | 150700.3.3.1 | sle-ha/15.7/x86_64 |
| pacemaker | 2.1.9+20250410.471584e6a2 | x86_64 | 150700.1.9 | sle-ha/15.7/x86_64 |
+--------------+----------------------------+--------+--------------+--------------------+
Total packages found: 2
terraform-provider-feilong by e_bischoff
Project Description
People need to test operating systems and applications on s390 platform. While this is straightforward with KVM, this is very difficult with z/VM.
IBM Cloud Infrastructure Center (ICIC) harnesses the Feilong API, but you can use Feilong without installing ICIC(see this schema).
What about writing a terraform Feilong provider, just like we have the terraform libvirt provider? That would allow to transparently call Feilong from your main.tf files to deploy and destroy resources on your z/VM system.
Goal for Hackweek 23
I would like to be able to easily deploy and provision VMs automatically on a z/VM system, in a way that people might enjoy even outside of SUSE.
My technical preference is to write a terraform provider plugin, as it is the approach that involves the least software components for our deployments, while remaining clean, and compatible with our existing development infrastructure.
Goals for Hackweek 24
Feilong provider works and is used internally by SUSE Manager team. Let's push it forward!
Let's add support for fiberchannel disks and multipath.
Goals for Hackweek 25
Modernization, maturity, and maintenance: support for SLES 16 and openTofu, new API calls, fixes...
Resources
Outcome
Play with the userfaultfd(2) system call and download on demand using HTTP Range Requests with Golang by rbranco
Description
The userfaultfd(2) is a cool system call to handle page faults in user-space. This should allow me to list the contents of an ISO or similar archive without downloading the whole thing. The userfaultfd(2) part can also be done in theory with the PROT_NONE mprotect + SIGSEGV trick, for complete Unix portability, though reportedly being slower.
Goals
- Create my own library for userfaultfd(2) in Golang.
- Create my own library for HTTP Range Requests.
- Complete portability with Unix.
- Benchmarks.
- Contribute some tests to LTP.
Resources
- https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/mm/userfaultfd.html
- https://www.cons.org/cracauer/cracauer-userfaultfd.html
Updatecli Autodiscovery supporting WASM plugins by olblak
Description
Updatecli is a Golang Update policy engine that allow to write Update policies in YAML manifest. Updatecli already has a plugin ecosystem for common update strategies such as automating Dockerfile or Kubernetes manifest from Git repositories.
This is what we call autodiscovery where Updatecli generate manifest and apply them dynamically based on some context.
Obviously, the Updatecli project doesn't accept plugins specific to an organization.
I saw project using different languages such as python, C#, or JS to generate those manifest.
It would be great to be able to share and reuse those specific plugins
During the HackWeek, I'll hang on the Updatecli matrix channel
https://matrix.to/#/#Updatecli_community:gitter.im
Goals
Implement autodiscovery plugins using WASM. I am planning to experiment with https://github.com/extism/extism
To build a simple WASM autodiscovery plugin and run it from Updatecli
Resources
- https://github.com/extism/extism
- https://github.com/updatecli/updatecli
- https://www.updatecli.io/docs/core/autodiscovery/
- https://matrix.to/#/#Updatecli_community:gitter.im
go-git: unlocking SHA256-based repository cloning ahead of git v3 by pgomes
Description
The go-git library implements the git internals in pure Go, so that any Go application can handle not only Git repositories, but also lower-level primitives (e.g. packfiles, idxfiles, etc) without needing to shell out to the git binary.
The focus for this Hackweek is to fast track key improvements for the project ahead of the upstream release of Git V3, which may take place at some point next year.
Goals
- Add support for cloning SHA256 repositories.
- Decrease memory churn for very large repositories (e.g. Linux Kernel repository).
- Cut the first alpha version for
go-git/v6.
Stretch goals
- Review and update the official documentation.
- Optimise use of go-git in Fleet.
- Create RFC/example for go-git plugins to improve extensibility.
- Investigate performance bottlenecks for Blame and Status.
Resources
- https://github.com/go-git/go-git/
- https://go-git.github.io/docs/
Testing and adding GNU/Linux distributions on Uyuni by juliogonzalezgil
Join the Gitter channel! https://gitter.im/uyuni-project/hackweek
Uyuni is a configuration and infrastructure management tool that saves you time and headaches when you have to manage and update tens, hundreds or even thousands of machines. It also manages configuration, can run audits, build image containers, monitor and much more!
Currently there are a few distributions that are completely untested on Uyuni or SUSE Manager (AFAIK) or just not tested since a long time, and could be interesting knowing how hard would be working with them and, if possible, fix whatever is broken.
For newcomers, the easiest distributions are those based on DEB or RPM packages. Distributions with other package formats are doable, but will require adapting the Python and Java code to be able to sync and analyze such packages (and if salt does not support those packages, it will need changes as well). So if you want a distribution with other packages, make sure you are comfortable handling such changes.
No developer experience? No worries! We had non-developers contributors in the past, and we are ready to help as long as you are willing to learn. If you don't want to code at all, you can also help us preparing the documentation after someone else has the initial code ready, or you could also help with testing :-)
The idea is testing Salt (including bootstrapping with bootstrap script) and Salt-ssh clients
To consider that a distribution has basic support, we should cover at least (points 3-6 are to be tested for both salt minions and salt ssh minions):
- Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
- Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
- Package management (install, remove, update...)
- Patching
- Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
- Salt remote commands
- Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
- Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
- Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)
- Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)
If something is breaking: we can try to fix it, but the main idea is research how supported it is right now. Beyond that it's up to each project member how much to hack :-)
- If you don't have knowledge about some of the steps: ask the team
- If you still don't know what to do: switch to another distribution and keep testing.
This card is for EVERYONE, not just developers. Seriously! We had people from other teams helping that were not developers, and added support for Debian and new SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE Leap versions :-)
In progress/done for Hack Week 25
Guide
We started writin a Guide: Adding a new client GNU Linux distribution to Uyuni at https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/wiki/Guide:-Adding-a-new-client-GNU-Linux-distribution-to-Uyuni, to make things easier for everyone, specially those not too familiar wht Uyuni or not technical.
openSUSE Leap 16.0
The distribution will all love!
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Roadmap#DRAFTScheduleforLeap16.0
Curent Status We started last year, it's complete now for Hack Week 25! :-D
[W]Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file) NOTE: Done, client tools for SLMicro6 are using as those for SLE16.0/openSUSE Leap 16.0 are not available yet[W]Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)[W]Package management (install, remove, update...). Works, even reboot requirement detection
Rancher/k8s Trouble-Maker by tonyhansen
Project Description
When studying for my RHCSA, I found trouble-maker, which is a program that breaks a Linux OS and requires you to fix it. I want to create something similar for Rancher/k8s that can allow for troubleshooting an unknown environment.
Goals for Hackweek 25
- Update to modern Rancher and verify that existing tests still work
- Change testing logic to populate secrets instead of requiring a secondary script
- Add new tests
Goals for Hackweek 24 (Complete)
- Create a basic framework for creating Rancher/k8s cluster lab environments as needed for the Break/Fix
- Create at least 5 modules that can be applied to the cluster and require troubleshooting
Resources
- https://github.com/celidon/rancher-troublemaker
- https://github.com/rancher/terraform-provider-rancher2
- https://github.com/rancher/tf-rancher-up
- https://github.com/rancher/quickstart
terraform-provider-feilong by e_bischoff
Project Description
People need to test operating systems and applications on s390 platform. While this is straightforward with KVM, this is very difficult with z/VM.
IBM Cloud Infrastructure Center (ICIC) harnesses the Feilong API, but you can use Feilong without installing ICIC(see this schema).
What about writing a terraform Feilong provider, just like we have the terraform libvirt provider? That would allow to transparently call Feilong from your main.tf files to deploy and destroy resources on your z/VM system.
Goal for Hackweek 23
I would like to be able to easily deploy and provision VMs automatically on a z/VM system, in a way that people might enjoy even outside of SUSE.
My technical preference is to write a terraform provider plugin, as it is the approach that involves the least software components for our deployments, while remaining clean, and compatible with our existing development infrastructure.
Goals for Hackweek 24
Feilong provider works and is used internally by SUSE Manager team. Let's push it forward!
Let's add support for fiberchannel disks and multipath.
Goals for Hackweek 25
Modernization, maturity, and maintenance: support for SLES 16 and openTofu, new API calls, fixes...
Resources
Outcome
Multimachine on-prem test with opentofu, ansible and Robot Framework by apappas
Description
A long time ago I explored using the Robot Framework for testing. A big deficiency over our openQA setup is that bringing up and configuring the connection to a test machine is out of scope.
Nowadays we have a way¹ to deploy SUTs outside openqa, but we only use if for cloud tests in conjuction with openqa. Using knowledge gained from that project I am going to try to create a test scenario that replicates an openqa test but this time including the deployment and setup of the SUT.
Goals
Create a simple multimachine test scenario with the support server and SUT all created by the robot framework.
Resources
- https://github.com/SUSE/qe-sap-deployment
- terraform-libvirt-provider
Extracting, converting and importing VMs from Nutanix into SUSE Virtualization by emendonca
Description
The idea is to delve into understanding Nutanix AHV internals on how it stores and runs VMs, and how to extract them in an automated way for importing into a KVM-compatible hypervisor, like SUSE Virtualization/Harvester. The final product will be not only be documentation, but a working prototype that can be used to automate the process.
Goals
1) document how to create a simple lab with NutaniX AHV community edition 2) determine the basic elements we need to interact with 3) determine what are the best paths to grab the images through, balancing speed and complexity 4) document possible issues and create a roadmap for tackling them 4) should we adapt an existing solution or implement a new one? 5) implement the solution!
Resources
Similar project I created: https://github.com/doccaz/vm-import-ui Nutanix AHV forums Nutanix technical bulletins
Q2Boot - A handy QEMU VM launcher by amanzini
Description
Q2Boot (Qemu Quick Boot) is a command-line tool that wraps QEMU to provide a streamlined experience for launching virtual machines. It automatically configures common settings like KVM acceleration, virtio drivers, and networking while allowing customization through both configuration files and command-line options.
The project originally was a personal utility in D, now recently rewritten in idiomatic Go. It lives at repository https://github.com/ilmanzo/q2boot
Goals
Improve the project, testing with different scenarios , address issues and propose new features. It will benefit of some basic integration testing by providing small sample disk images.
Updates
- Dec 1, 2025 : refactor command line options, added structured logging. Released v0.0.2
- Dec 2, 2025 : added external monitor via telnet option
- Dec 4, 2025 : released v0.0.3 with architecture auto-detection
- Dec 5, 2025 : filing new issues and general polishment. Designing E2E testing
Resources
SUSE Virtualization (Harvester): VM Import UI flow by wombelix
Description
SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) has a vm-import-controller that allows migrating VMs from VMware and OpenStack, but users need to write manifest files and apply them with kubectl to use it. This project is about adding the missing UI pieces to the harvester-ui-extension, making VM Imports accessible without requiring Kubernetes and YAML knowledge.
VMware and OpenStack admins aren't automatically familiar with Kubernetes and YAML. Implementing the UI part for the VM Import feature makes it easier to use and more accessible. The Harvester Enhancement Proposal (HEP) VM Migration controller included a UI flow implementation in its scope. Issue #2274 received multiple comments that an UI integration would be a nice addition, and issue #4663 was created to request the implementation but eventually stalled.
Right now users need to manually create either VmwareSource or OpenstackSource resources, then write VirtualMachineImport manifests with network mappings and all the other configuration options. Users should be able to do that and track import status through the UI without writing YAML.
Work during the Hack Week will be done in this fork in a branch called suse-hack-week-25, making progress publicly visible and open for contributions. When everything works out and the branch is in good shape, it will be submitted as a pull request to harvester-ui-extension to get it included in the next Harvester release.
Testing will focus on VMware since that's what is available in the lab environment (SUSE Virtualization 1.6 single-node cluster, ESXi 8.0 standalone host). Given that this is about UI and surfacing what the vm-import-controller handles, the implementation should work for OpenStack imports as well.
This project is also a personal challenge to learn vue.js and get familiar with Rancher Extensions development, since harvester-ui-extension is built on that framework.
Goals
- Learn Vue.js and Rancher Extensions fundamentals required to finish the project
- Read and learn from other Rancher UI Extensions code, especially understanding the
harvester-ui-extensioncode base - Understand what the
vm-import-controllerand its CRDs require, identify ready to use components in the Rancher UI Extension API that can be leveraged - Implement UI logic for creating and managing
VmwareSource/OpenstackSourceandVirtualMachineImportresources with all relevant configuration options and credentials - Implemnt UI elements to display
VirtualMachineImportstatus and errors
Resources
HEP and related discussion
- https://github.com/harvester/harvester/blob/master/enhancements/20220726-vm-migration.md
- https://github.com/harvester/harvester/issues/2274
- https://github.com/harvester/harvester/issues/4663
SUSE Virtualization VM Import Documentation
Rancher Extensions Documentation
Rancher UI Plugin Examples
Vue Router Essentials
Vue Router API
Vuex Documentation
Reassess HiFive Premier P550 board (for RISC-V virtualization) by a_faerber
Description
With growing interest in the RISC-V instruction set architecture, we need to re-evaluate ways of building packages for it:
Currently openSUSE OBS is using x86_64 build workers, using QEMU userspace-level (syscall) emulation inside KVM VMs. Occasionally this setup causes build failures, due to timing differences or incomplete emulation. Andreas Schwab and others have collected workarounds in projects like openSUSE:Factory:RISCV to deal with some of those issues.
Ideally we would be using native riscv64 KVM VMs instead. This requires CPUs with the H extension. Two generally available development boards feature the ESWIN 7700X System-on-Chip with SiFive P550 CPUs, HiFive Premier P550 and Milk-V Megrez. We've had access to the HiFive Premier P550 for some time now, but the early version (based on Yocto) had issues with the bootloader, and reportedly later boards were booting to a dracut emergency shell for lack of block device drivers.
Goals
- Update the boot firmware
- Test whether and how far openSUSE Tumbleweed boots
Results
- Boot firmware image 2025.11.00 successfully flashed onto board
- Enables UEFI boot in U-Boot by default
- U-Boot's embedded Flat Device Tree is lacking a timebase-frequency, required for recent (6.16.3) mainline kernels (panic leading to reset, visible via earlycon=sbi)
- Tested eswin/eic7700-hifive-premier-p550.dtb from Ubuntu 2025.11.00 image
- Allows to boot past the above panic, but times out in JeOS image while waiting for block device, dropping to dracut emergency shell
- No devices shown in lsblk -- 6.16 appears to be lacking device drivers still
Resources
SUSE KVM Best Practices - Focus on SAP Workloads and Use Cases by roseswe
Description
SUSE Best Practices around KVM, especially for SAP workloads. Early Google presentation already made from various customer projects and SUSE sources.
Goals
- Complete presentation we can reuse in SUSE Consulting projects
- 2025: Bring it to version 1.00 ready for customers
Resources
KVM (virt-manager) images
SUSE/SAP/KVM Best Practices
- https://documentation.suse.com/en-us/sles/15-SP6/single-html/SLES-virtualization/
- SAP Note 1522993 - "Linux: SAP on SUSE KVM - Kernel-based Virtual Machine" && 2284516 - SAP HANA virtualized on SUSE Linux Enterprise hypervisors https://me.sap.com/notes/2284516
- SUSECon24: [TUTORIAL-1253] Virtualizing SAP workloads with SUSE KVM || https://youtu.be/PTkpRVpX2PM
- SUSE Best Practices for SAP HANA on KVM - https://documentation.suse.com/sbp/sap-15/html/SBP-SLES4SAP-HANAonKVM-SLES15SP4/index.html
Help Create A Chat Control Resistant Turnkey Chatmail/Deltachat Relay Stack - Rootless Podman Compose, OpenSUSE BCI, Hardened, & SELinux by 3nd5h1771fy
Description
The Mission: Decentralized & Sovereign Messaging
FYI: If you have never heard of "Chatmail", you can visit their site here, but simply put it can be thought of as the underlying protocol/platform decentralized messengers like DeltaChat use for their communications. Do not confuse it with the honeypot looking non-opensource paid for prodect with better seo that directs you to chatmailsecure(dot)com
In an era of increasing centralized surveillance by unaccountable bad actors (aka BigTech), "Chat Control," and the erosion of digital privacy, the need for sovereign communication infrastructure is critical. Chatmail is a pioneering initiative that bridges the gap between classic email and modern instant messaging, offering metadata-minimized, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communication that is interoperable and open.
However, unless you are a seasoned sysadmin, the current recommended deployment method of a Chatmail relay is rigid, fragile, difficult to properly secure, and effectively takes over the entire host the "relay" is deployed on.
Why This Matters
A simple, host agnostic, reproducible deployment lowers the entry cost for anyone wanting to run a privacy‑preserving, decentralized messaging relay. In an era of perpetually resurrected chat‑control legislation threats, EU digital‑sovereignty drives, and many dangers of using big‑tech messaging platforms (Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Google Messages, etc...) for any type of communication, providing an easy‑to‑use alternative empowers:
- Censorship resistance - No single entity controls the relay; operators can spin up new nodes quickly.
- Surveillance mitigation - End‑to‑end OpenPGP encryption ensures relay operators never see plaintext.
- Digital sovereignty - Communities can host their own infrastructure under local jurisdiction, aligning with national data‑policy goals.
By turning the Chatmail relay into a plug‑and‑play container stack, we enable broader adoption, foster a resilient messaging fabric, and give developers, activists, and hobbyists a concrete tool to defend privacy online.
Goals
As I indicated earlier, this project aims to drastically simplify the deployment of Chatmail relay. By converting this architecture into a portable, containerized stack using Podman and OpenSUSE base container images, we can allow anyone to deploy their own censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving communications node in minutes.
Our goal for Hack Week: package every component into containers built on openSUSE/MicroOS base images, initially orchestrated with a single container-compose.yml (podman-compose compatible). The stack will:
- Run on any host that supports Podman (including optimizations and enhancements for SELinux‑enabled systems).
- Allow network decoupling by refactoring configurations to move from file-system constrained Unix sockets to internal TCP networking, allowing containers achieve stricter isolation.
- Utilize Enhanced Security with SELinux by using purpose built utilities such as udica we can quickly generate custom SELinux policies for the container stack, ensuring strict confinement superior to standard/typical Docker deployments.
- Allow the use of bind or remote mounted volumes for shared data (
/var/vmail, DKIM keys, TLS certs, etc.). - Replace the local DNS server requirement with a remote DNS‑provider API for DKIM/TXT record publishing.
By delivering a turnkey, host agnostic, reproducible deployment, we lower the barrier for individuals and small communities to launch their own chatmail relays, fostering a decentralized, censorship‑resistant messaging ecosystem that can serve DeltaChat users and/or future services adopting this protocol
Resources
- The links included above
- https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/
- https://delta.chat/en/help
- Project repo -> https://codeberg.org/EndShittification/containerized-chatmail-relay
Bring to Cockpit + System Roles capabilities from YAST by miguelpc
Bring to Cockpit + System Roles features from YAST
Cockpit and System Roles have been added to SLES 16 There are several capabilities in YAST that are not yet present in Cockpit and System Roles We will follow the principle of "automate first, UI later" being System Roles the automation component and Cockpit the UI one.
Goals
The idea is to implement service configuration in System Roles and then add an UI to manage these in Cockpit. For some capabilities it will be required to have an specific Cockpit Module as they will interact with a reasource already configured.
Resources
A plan on capabilities missing and suggested implementation is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZhX-Ip9MKJNeKSYV3bSZG4Qc5giuY7XSV0U61Ecu9lo/edit
Linux System Roles:
- https://linux-system-roles.github.io/
- https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/openSUSE:Factory/ansible-linux-system-roles Package on sle16 ansible-linux-system-roles
First meeting Hackweek catchup
- Monday, December 1 · 11:00 – 12:00
- Time zone: Europe/Madrid
- Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/rrc-kqch-hca