Summer coding ideas for 2016

Open For Ideas! - This page contains some ideas from last year. This does not mean that they are valid for this year too. We are in the process of cleaning up the page.

Find an idea you like? Want to propose your own? See the GSoC Getting Started Guide.

Students Welcome

If you are a student looking forward to participate the GSoC 2016 with Fedora, please feel free to browse the idea list which is still growing. Do not hesitate to contact the mentors or contributors as indicated in this page for any related clarification. You also should find some like-minded people on the #fedora-summer-coding IRC channel.

If you are new to the Fedora Project, the following material will help you to get started. Additionally, please register in the Fedora Account System (FAS) if you are willing to continue with the Fedora Project. For getting quick help, #fedora-devel can be used for getting help with programming problems.

1. The Four Foundations of Fedora
2. Official GSoC Resources
3. Fedora Documentation
4. IRC
5. Development

Supporting Mentors

The following contributors are available to provide general help and support for the GSoC 2016 program (existing contributors, feel free to add yourselves and your wiki page). If a specific project mentor is busy, you can contact one of the people below for short-term help on your project or task.

1. Remy DeCausemaker
2. Kushal Das
3. Haïkel Guémar
4. Josh Berkus
5. Luke Macken
6. Lali Devamanthri
7. Justin W. Flory (non-programming questions)

Fedora Atomic Mentors

The following mentors are specifically available for projects related to Fedora Atomic:

1. Giuseppe Scriviano
2. Colin Walters
3. Giuseppe Scrivano
4. Matthew Barnes

Idea list for GSoC 2016

Implement Tinykdump

Status: Proposed - draft

Summary of idea: Tinykdump is a minimal daemon to capture kernel-based crash dumping (kdump) memory image to usb storage. Compared to the traditional kdump solution, it is,

* more reliable and scalable
* has smaller memory foot-print
* more friendly to kernel developers 

More information here: https://fedorahosted.org/tinykdump/

Knowledge prerequisite: Python, kernel programming (desired)

Skill level: intermediate (programming)

Contacts: CAI Qian

Mentor(s): CAI Qian

Notes: Rough roadmap:

• Implement tinykdump daemon to be included in Fedora.
• Submit kernel patches for reserving kdump memory at run-time for community review and inclusion.
• Currently, pstore only log kernel messages for panic and Oops. Patches are needed to support logging of kdump kernel and initramfs console output.

Implement MIPS bits to packages

Status: Proposed

Summary of idea: Some packages are missing implementation bits for MIPS architecture. The goal of this project is implementing and posting them upstream.

URL: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/MIPS

Knowledge prerequisite: Packaging, Python, C

Skill level: intermediate

Contacts: Michal Toman

Mentor(s): Michal Toman

Notes: The following packages are in question:

• java - builds on 32-bit MIPS but does not work, dies with SIGILL
• redhat-lsb - misses assembly bits for MIPS
• anaconda/blivet - completely MIPS unaware
• valgrind - no FPXX support on 32-bit MIPS, builds on mips64el but does not work
• elfutils - unwinding is not supported on MIPS
• u-boot - build working MIPS images
• ... there are more but these are the most painful

This is obviously too much for a single project, we are going to agree on a reasonable subset.

Expected outcome:

• Better MIPS support in upstream projects and Fedora packages
• Learn about MIPS architecture
• Learn to communicate with upstreams

Idea list for Fedora Community Operations and Infrastructure

Fedora Infrastructure Web Application Development: Community Operations (CommOps)

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Community Operations (CommOps)	#fedora-commops	CommOps Wiki	Remy DeCausemaker (decause) Corey Sheldon (linux-modder)	The rise of DevOps has been swift. Sysadmins are increasingly instrumenting and integrating automated systems to stand up and maintain their infrastructure. This same approach can be taken to support community infrastructure in a distributed and automated fashion, that doesn't force people to choose between using their precious volunteer time to "build things" or "build communities that build things." The community operations team works across numerous technologies, and interest areas in Fedora, including Messaging, Storytelling, Fedora Badges, Fedora Hubs, Wiki, Culture, Metrics, Voting, and other miscellaneous topics. It is important to note that CommOps team members are generalists, and the strengths and interests of individual applicants will determine the precise nature of your work. Enthusiasm for FOSS culture and community organization, and effective communication skills are most important. Specific deliverables can include automated metrics gathering, real-time messaging integration with Fedora hubs, and other big-data analysis and visualization. Tools are primarily written in python, and utilize libraries such as fedmsg, numpy, pandas, pygals, flask, sqlalchemy. We also leverage other web technologies like HTML5 and Javascript, and frameworks such as bootstrap and handlebars to deliver these metrics. Your internship with this project could also involve any or all of the following: Web testing and bug reporting / triaging Content development and syndication Writing for the web and print Collaboration with Fedora Council and Leadership on Project Objectives and Initiatives Volunteer Coordination and Organizing Campaign development and implementation Advocacy and Messaging Required: Effective Communication Skills; written and verbal, synchronous and asynchronous. Passion for Free/Open Source Software and Free Culture Self-directed and Curious nature Experience writing for the web (Content only is ok, HTML/CSS even better) Experience publishing and/or syndicating content via Social Media Experience working in teams, or community organizing Basic Web development/design skills Bonus Skills: Basic multimedia development skills Sysadmin/Devops skills programming/scripting skills

Fedora Infrastructure Web Application Development: Fedora Hubs

Fedora Infrastructure Web Application Development: Fedora Hubs

#fedora-hubs

Fedora Infrastructure Team Fedora Hubs Wiki

Luke Macken (lmacken) Remy DeCausemaker (decause) Corey Sheldon (linux-modder)

Fedora has been in the process of creating a new web presence for all of the Fedora users, subprojects, and communities. We also plan to integrate some of the features of this system with the prototype of the Fedora Developer Portal, which is targeted at helping general developers use Fedora. While the Hubs project itself is aimed at Fedora contributor circles, the reusable features will allow the Portal to use this work to speak to general developers who may not have an interest in working in the Fedora community, but want to connect with community members for advice, best practices, or to generate interest in their upstream project. Several of the principal app developers in the Fedora Engineering team will be working together with you on this project during the GSoC term. You'll participate directly with team members daily on core features of Hubs as well as integration with the Portal. This is a great opportunity both for regular mentorship and for being deeply involved in an exciting and fast-moving project with the Fedora team. Working on this project could involve any of the following: Adding new features to the web frontend Adding new capabilities to the backend Writing and deploying new widgets Triaging and processing new widget ideas submitted by the community at large. Implementing existing (and thoroughly detailed) mockups from previous UI/UX interns and team members. Skills: HTML/Javascript/CSS Basic Python a plus Bonus: Experience with Bootstrap, jinja templates, Fedmsg, datanommer/grepper, or other fedora infrastructure projects a HUGE plus. When applying to this project, it may be useful to review the designers' blogs about the projects' design here: Fedora Developer Portal http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2015/09/15/fedora-developer-website-design/ Fedora Hubs http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/fedora-hubs https://meghanrichardson.wordpress.com/ A video overview of the Hubs project is available here: http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2015/07/01/fedora-hubs-update/

Fedora Infrastructure Web Application Development: Pagure

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Pagure	#fedora-apps	Pagure project	Pierre-Yves Chibon (pingou) Corey Sheldon (linuxmodder)	Pagure is a forge written in python and offering the possibility of self-hosting projects while still using the now well-know fork and pull-request contribution model. While being similar to other forge such as GitHub or GitLab it is also pretty different for example it does not namespace projects under usernames with the idea that projects should not belong to a single person but to a community. Your internship with this project could also involve any or all of the following: Web testing and bug reporting / triaging Content development and syndication Participating in the effort to make of pagure the official front-end to Fedora's packages git repositories (currently being the read-only cgit) Implementing private projects in pagure Figuring out how/if pagure can be a front-end for Fedora's git repo now that they are namespaced (to offer more than just rpms, for example docker containers) Required: Effective Communication Skills; written and verbal, synchronous and asynchronous. Passion for Free/Open Source Software and Free Culture Self-directed and Curious nature Experience with Flask, javascript and HTML Experience with git Sysadmin/Devops skills Bonus Skills: Previous experience with Pagure Experience with developing APIs and CLIs using it

Idea list for Fedora Atomic GSoC 2016

This idea list comes from the Project Atomic website. The most up-to-date version is there.

Next-generation Super Privileged Container

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Colin Walters (walters) Giuseppe Scrivano (gscrivano)	Description Next generation super-privileged containers: Improve building, managing, and updating these container images] Difficulty: Advanced Required skills: C programming Python programming Docker and/or runC experience Bonus Skills: Golang programming SELinux knowledge Expected outcomes Implement ability for user to install flannel, etcd, and other bootstrap containers and manage them easily New super-priv containers are accepted into planned design of Atomic Host Learn how container security works Learn advanced SELinux hackery Learn how to manage container dependances

Atomic Host package layering

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Colin Walters (walters) Giuseppe Scrivano (gscrivano)	Description Atomic Host package layering: Improve the package layering design, support more RPMs, ensure %post scripts are safe, etc.] Required: C programming Fedora or other Linux Bonus Skills: Knowledge of RPM packaging Experience working in Linux distributions Libraries and Software: rpm-ostree, libhif Difficulty Level: Advanced Expected outcomes Ability to layer debugging, bootstrap, and other packages Learn how OStree images work Learn packaging security practices and theory

Bootstrap with gpgcheck in kickstart

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus) Giuseppe Scrivano (gscrivano) Corey Sheldon (linux-modder)	Description Bootstrap with gpgcheck in kickstart: Add a way for importing a GPG key from the kickstart ostreesetup command before the download starts. "ostreesetup" is described here Required: Ability to use kickstart images Experience with virt helpful Fedora or other Linux Experience Libraries and Software: kickstart gpg virt RPM-OStree Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes Ability to kickstart atomic images with full gpg support working Improved software supply chain hygiene for project atomic Learning how secure provisioning works Learning how to get code merged upstream

Improve ability to monitor running/canceled transactions

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus) Giuseppe Scrivano (gscrivano)	Description Improve ability to monitor running/canceled transactions: The rpm-ostree client termination doesn't block the command execution on the rpm-ostreed. This will cause new rpm-ostree clients to fail immediately because there is a transaction in progress. Change rpm-ostree to be notified of the status of the current transaction and possibly attach to it. Required: C programming experience Ability to create Virtual Machines (VMs) or have access to spare PC nearby for testing. Fedora or other Linux Experience Bonus Skills: Experience with RPM packaging Libraries and Software: rpm-ostree Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes Ability for project to better understand transactions happening in the deamon Ability for project to re-attach and get transaction status Understand RPM-OSTree upgrade model and how tree transactions work Learn how to work with upstreams

Support for end-of-life notification

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus)	Description Support for end-of-life notification: Add support for having an end-of-life notification to inform users if a particular branch is not supported anymore. Required: C programming experience Fedora or other GNU/Linux Experience Bonus Skills: Advanced C programming experience experience with RPM packaging Libraries and Software: rpm-ostree atomic CLI Difficulty Level: Novice Expected outcomes rpm-ostree and atomic command output explaining when a version of an upgraded tree branch is end of life (EoL) feature merged into future releases, and packaged for distribution Learn how to work with upstreams and Linux distributions Understand how EOL policies and lifecycles work

rpm-ostree operation history support

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus)	Description rpm-ostree operation history support: Add support for atomic history to display the transactions history. It should work in a similar way to yum history. Required: C programming experience Python Programming experience Fedora or other GNU/Linux experience Bonus Skills: Advanced C programming experience Advanced Python programming experience Ability to work with Upstreams Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes Duplication of support for history in the atomic command, similar to "yum history" Strong command history and output on the system, possibly in systemd journal

Support Metalink for OSTree

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus) Giuseppe Scrivano (giuseppe)	Description Support metalink for OSTree: Add support for metalink files and support downloads from a list of mirrors and fetch objects from multiple sources. Required: C programming experience Metalink experience Experience working with RPM packaging Bonus Skills: Advanced C programming experience Ability to work with Upstreams Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes Ability to use a list of mirrors for OSTree upgrade Ability to fetch trees in parallel

Drop privileges for HTTP fetches

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
'Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus) Giuseppe Scrivano (giuseppe)	Description Drop privileges for HTTP fetches: The HTTP fetcher code is running in the same process of OSTree. Move the HTTP fetcher code to another process with less privileges than the main process. Required: C programming experience SELinux knowledge Bonus Skills: Advanced C programming experience libsoup experience helpful Advanced SELinux Experience Ability to work with Upstreams Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes OSTree uses a different process for fetching data over HTTP Main OSTree process communicates through Inter Process Communication (IPC) with fetcher process Fetcher confined to write-only in a temporary file

Support kpatch

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Josh Berkus (jberkus) Giuseppe Scrivano (giuseppe) Corey Sheldon (linux-modder)	Description Support kpatch: Support live update for the kernel without rebooting or restarting any processes. Required: C programming experience Python programming experience Basic knowledge of D-Bus Bonus Skills: Advanced C programming experience Advanced Python programming experience Advanced knowledge of D-Bus Familiarity with kpatch Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes Partial live update feature integrated into Fedora Atomic Host Learn to implement live kernel update Learn to work with upstream project integration Understand RPM-OSTree packaging and images

Automatic Atomic Host Updates

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Fedora Atomic	#atomic	ProjectAtomic.io	Colin Walters (walters) Giuseppe Scrivano (giuseppe)	Description [1]: implement a service that automatically upgrades the system when a new image is available. If the system is not restarting correctly, the rollback to the previous working version. Required: C programming experience Python programming experience Basic knowledge of systemd Ability to create and run VMs. Bonus Skills: Advanced C programming experience Advanced Python programming experience Familiarity with RPM packaging Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes Automated updates integrated into Fedora Atomic Host Learn how RPM-OStree packaging and images work Develop ability to contribute to Atomic Host

Idea list for Cockpit

Cockpit support for systemd timers

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Cockpit	#cockpit	[2]	Dominik Perpeet (dperpeet) Peter Volpe (petervo)	Description: Systemd provides timers for calendar time events and monotonic time events ([3], [4]). A major component of the Fedora Server is the Cockpit Project, a web-based management console for servers. Some designs for timers in Cockpit exist at [5]. Required: JavaScript (ideally jQuery) Fedora or other Linux Bonus Skills: Familiarity with D-BUS Familiarity with Python (2.7) Experience working in Linux distributions Libraries and Software: cockpit (http://cockpit-project.org/) Difficulty Level: Beginner to intermediate Expected outcomes A user of the Cockpit UI is able to view existing timers, edit existing ones or create new timers while providing the minimum set of necessary information to the UI The UI optionally allows more advanced settings to be selected Functionality of added features is tested via unit and/or integration tests

OStree Repositories in Cockpit

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Cockpit	#cockpit	[6]	Dominik Perpeet (dperpeet) Peter Volpe (petervo)	Description: Cockpit provides an interface for updating the installed software on Atomic systems using rpm-ostree. Admins should be able to examine the OSTree repos enabled on a machine, and add/edit/remove them via Cockpit. Required: JavaScript (ideally angular) Fedora or other Linux Bonus Skills: Familiarity with D-BUS Familiarity with Python (2.7) Familiarity with OSTree Experience working in Linux distributions Libraries and Software: cockpit ([7]) rpm-ostree ([8]) Difficulty Level: Beginner to intermediate Expected outcomes A user of the Cockpit UI is able to examine the OSTree repos enabled on a machine, and add/edit/remove them. Functionality of added features is tested via unit and/or integration tests

OStree Rebases in Cockpit

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Cockpit	#cockpit	[9]	Dominik Perpeet (dperpeet) Peter Volpe (petervo)	Description: Cockpit provides an interface for updating the installed software on Atomic systems using rpm-ostree. Admins should be able to 'rebase' to a different operating system channel or timeline via Cockpit. Required: JavaScript (ideally angular) Fedora or other Linux Bonus Skills: Familiarity with D-BUS Familiarity with Python (2.7) Familiarity with OSTree Experience working in Linux distributions Libraries and Software: cockpit ([10]) rpm-ostree ([11]) Difficulty Level: Beginner to intermediate Expected outcomes A user of the Cockpit UI is able to be able to 'rebase' to a different operating system channel or timeline via Cockpit. Functionality of added features is tested via unit and/or integration tests

Setup a FreeIPA server in Cockpit using Rolekit

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Cockpit	#cockpit	[12]	Dominik Perpeet (dperpeet) Peter Volpe (petervo)	Description: FreeIPA is a domain and directory server. This task implements a UI for setting it up. The Rolekit Project provides a platform API for deploying Server Roles such as FreeIPA onto a system. Currently, it supports creating a Domain Controller (based on FreeIPA) or a Database Server (based on PostgreSQL). A major component of the Fedora Server is the Cockpit Project, a web-based management console for servers. The goal of this effort would be to enhance the Cockpit UI so that an administrator could deploy the FreeIPA role. Some designs for rolekit integration into Cockpit exist at [13]. Required: JavaScript (ideally jQuery) Fedora or other Linux Bonus Skills: Familiarity with D-BUS Familiarity with Python (2.7) Experience working in Linux distributions Domain or directory experience Libraries and Software: cockpit ([14]) FreeIPA ([15]) Rolekit ([16]) Difficulty Level: Intermediate Expected outcomes A user of the Cockpit UI is able to deploy a Domain Controller while providing the minimum set of necessary information to the UI The UI allows more advanced settings to be selected The UI also provides a link post-deployment that allows the user to browse to the Domain Controller administration UI

Docs

Anerist

Project	IRC Channel	Web Page	Mentor(s)	Notes
Docs Project	#fedora-docs	[17]	Zach Oglesby (zoglesby)	The Fedora community produces a variety of content suitable for user reference. Members of the Fedora Project produce documentation in a variety of ways - manpages and code comments from developers, system architecture design and best practices reference material from the infra team; application design, interface design, microservices, buildfarms and more. All at work meeting the needs of a transparent organization built on open source technologies and open development practices. Anerist is intended to consume reference materials, in whatever format they are discovered in, and render them to produce a neatly indexed html site with a common style and theme. To alleviate manual effort in this conversion process, and in the process of 'cycling' translations, the application is event driven, with content regenerated on each change of the sources using CICD technologies. This design relies on modularized conversion tools, which also allows for programmatically generated content and drop-in custom views of technologies or infrastructure. We need your help to build this framework. You'll use python, bootstrap, buildbot, fedmsg, git, and more. Your internship with this project could also involve any or all of the following: Exposure to content development workflows. Mentoring from seasoned sysadmins, veteran technical writers, and free software advocates. Learning the Open Source Way, the practice of transparent positive collaboration that forms bedrock of Fedora's Foundations. Required: general python skills experience with generating and rendering ReStructuredText familiarity with DocBook, or other structured contextual XML. familiarity with Jenkins, buildbot, or similar buildsystems Bonus Skills: UX Design experience Free software advocacy Extended community participation Ownership of amusing hats

Open Ideas From GSoC 2015

In addition to the above list of ideas, you may want to check out ideas from previous years and contact the mentors for those projects to see if they're still interested in mentoring someone this year.

Note: Do not submit a proposal for an idea from a previous year without contacting the mentor to ensure they will be available to mentor you. Without a mentor, proposals will be rejected.

Previous years:

• 2015
• 2014
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008