Maxima wiki and shell server is down; can someone look into it?

Hello Harald,

this is a complete copy of one of the messages I have got form the server:

*************

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients.
This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  maxima-commits at lists.sourceforge.net
    retry time not reached for any host after a long failure period

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

Return-path: <crategus at users.sourceforge.net>
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To: maxima-commits at lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: CVS: maxima/src asum.lisp,1.29,1.30
Message-Id: <E1KhWSt-0003Bg-Ma at sc8-pr-cvs16.sourceforge.net>
From: Dieter Kaiser <crategus at users.sourceforge.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:27:35 -0700
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Update of /cvsroot/maxima/maxima/src
In directory sc8-pr-cvs16.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv12024

Modified Files:
	asum.lisp
Log Message:
Adding tests for the arguments of genfact(x,y,z).

The algorithm of genfact(x,y,z) only works for the following range of the
arguments:

   x, y, z positive integer and z <= x and y <= x/z.

The tests for this range of values have been added. For integer values beyond
this range a Maxima error is thrown. For all other numbers Maxima returns  a
noun form.

Related bug:
SF [1093138] double factorial defn incorrect for noninteger operand

Modified file: asum.lisp

Index: asum.lisp
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/maxima/maxima/src/asum.lisp,v
retrieving revision 1.29
retrieving revision 1.30
diff -u -d -r1.29 -r1.30
--- asum.lisp	19 Sep 2008 20:14:11 -0000	1.29
+++ asum.lisp	21 Sep 2008 21:27:31 -0000	1.30
@@ -311,8 +311,15 @@
   (if (not (= (length x) 4)) (wna-err '$genfact))
   (setq z (mapcar #'(lambda (q) (simpcheck q z)) (cdr x)))
   (let ((a (car z)) (b (take '($floor) (cadr z))) (c (caddr z)))
-    (cond ((and (fixnump b) (> b -1)) (gfact a b c))
-	  ((integerp b) (merror "Bad second argument to `genfact': ~:M" b))
+    (cond ((and (fixnump a)
+                (fixnump b)
+                (fixnump c))
+           (if (and (> a -1)
+                    (> b -1) 
+                    (or (<= c a) (= b 0))
+                    (<= b (/ a c)))
+             (gfact a b c)
+             (merror "Bad argument to `genfact'")))
 	  (t (eqtest (list '(%genfact) a
 			   (if (and (not (atom b))
 				    (eq (caar b) '$floor))

**********

Dieter Kaiser

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: harald at lefant.net [mailto:harald at lefant.net] 
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 24. September 2008 02:52
An: Dieter Kaiser
Cc: 'Robert Dodier'; maxima at math.utexas.edu
Betreff: Re: [Maxima] Maxima wiki and shell server is down; can someone look
into it? 

Hi!

Robert Dodier wrote:
> The Maxima wiki http://maxima.sourceforge.net/wiki isn't working.
> Also it appears that ssh robert_dodier at maxima.sourceforge.net fails.
>
> This is probably a consequence of the Sourceforge datacenter
> migration which happened a few weeks or months ago.
>
> Can someone investigate?

For now I only had a short look. I can confirm what you observe.

After rereading the relevant sourceforge site doc (which is quite
inconsistent on ssh related stuff) it seems to me, that sourceforge
is generally reduceing ssh services...

I can't login at maxima.sourceforge.net either but what does work
is logging in at web.sourceforge.net - but only via sftp. If I
try to log in to the shell I get an error message that this is a
restricted service and that I can't execute any commands.

Using sftp I eventually found the maxima homedir, but there aren't
any files there ...

Not sure what to do now: Perhaps this is the middle of a transition
and things will start working again over the next days. Perhaps 
sf changes everything and somebody has to reread the site documentation
(as soon as it is up to date)

Regarding the wiki: Was this an official sf wiki in the past or something
hacked together on our own?

Perhaps we should get rid of sf, see below...

Dieter Kaiser wrote:
> I have got the following message for the last 8 commits I have done:
> 
> **********
> This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
> 
> A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipi=
> ents.
> This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
> 
>   maxima-commits at lists.sourceforge.net
>     retry time not reached for any host after a long failure period
> **********
> 
> I have also observed that the mailing-lists on Sourceforge.net are 
> not acutal
> and I do not get the expected mails after updating a bug report.

Well, if you can provide me with a full copy (all headers, mime parts, etc)
of such a message, it would be easier to see what's wrong... Right now
I don't see any obvious issues with the list server.


I want to make a few comments on sourceforge:

I know we did discuss several times in the past if we should move
the project away from sourceforge. These ideas never lead to anything,
mostly because nobody proposed a sound alternative, I guess. Unfortunatly
I can't offer reliable hosting either - but I don't think it will become
easier in the future, so perhaps we should think about it again anyway.

IMO we don't need to move everything to one new hosting, actually we
already have distributed our services between sf, utexas and the
sites of various developers. I think this worked out quite well.

The following is a list of services, that are currently hosted 
at sf, but which IMHO could benefit from moving away:

* source repository
 - I think any distributed rcs (as opposed to cvs and svn) would do for 
   our purposes
 - We need to preserve the history information (git can do it, others
   perhaps too)
 - If we used some distributed rcs, then we could accept some drawbacks on
   reliability

* various mailing lists
  Should be fairly easy to find new places for, once the list admins
  are fed up with sf. Probably we don't need to worry about that as
  a project.

* bug tracker
  - If we use some kind of bugzilla again, the move should be possible
    with reasonable effort. If we use something else (like debbugs)
    the move might become tricky.
  - Good bug tracking systems are complicated and difficult to set up,
    thus there isn't that many hosting providers to choose from.

* wiki
  - Unless the wiki comes back on its own in the next days, we need
    to recover it somehow anyway.
  - There should be plenty of opportunities to get a wiki hosted
    nowadays.
  - There is no law forcing us to have one central wiki.

* home page
  - Would be some write restricted wiki enough?
  - It probably would be nice if most developers had write access.

Things where IMO it doesn't hurt if it stays at sf:

* release download
  - sourceforge has a nice mirror network - hard to duplicate this
  - only few people (release managers, etc) need to mess with this

* DNS name
  Currently we use maxima.sourceforge.net because there is no maxima
  domain. This is unlikely to change (the maxima project is no
  organisation) and I don't think the current situation causes any
  trouble.

I claim (others might disagree) that we could move any of the above
mentioned services somewhere else without touching the other (except
for updating a few links).

What are others opinions on this? Does anybody have suggestions
where to host some services? Is there any chance we might move
some of the project to alioth?

Harald