Hello,

The LCG PEB has endorsed the attached mandate for a new quattor working
group.  Essentially the mandate formalizes the existing community effort
to have an LCG distribution/configuration which works with quattor.

There is a mailing list ([log in to unmask]) which will
be used to discuss the initial administrative details, the work plan,
and then problems/progress with the quattor-compatible distribution.

All people interested in using quattor and contributing to the effort
are encouraged to join the list.  It is a standard CERN SIMBA list and
can be joined with the instructions available from the page:

http://wwwlistbox.cern.ch

(link "Subscribing to a list" on the right side of page).  If you're an
external user not already on one of the CERN mailing lists, then contact
me and I'll add you to the database.

Cal




Quattor Working Group Mandate
-----------------------------

The Quattor working group will:

* Produce a complete, example quattor configuration of grid services
  which is easily adapted for the majority of sites using quattor.

* Support the example configuration including any necessary,
  grid-specific configuration components.

* Actively evolve the configuration in response to changes in the grid
  software and make updated configurations available in a timely
  manner.

* Coordinate with the quattor developers to ensure a smooth evolution
  of configuration components for standard system services used by the
  grid software.  The group may take responsibility for these or other
  standard components with mutual agreement of the quattor developers
  and working group.  The systems supported will be those needed by
  contributors to the group (initially RH7.3 and Scientific Linux 3).

* Identify changes in the quattor tools which will simplify the
  configuration and work with the quattor developers to have them
  implemented.

* Identify changes in configuration of grid services which facilitate
  the configuration by automated tools (and do not complicate manual
  installation) and feed this back to the developers.

Achieving these goals will require cooperation from many other parts
of the grid projects.  In particular:

* To ensure a timely release of a configuration for each grid software
  release, it is necessary that at least one site using quattor be
  included early in the certification and validation process.

* The effort for the configuration and support is expected to come
  from sites using quattor.  The quattor support effort is considered
  a valid use of manpower assigned for the operation of a site
  (e.g. from SA1 in EGEE).

* To allow the creation of configuration components, the developers of
  the software must supply a clear description of all configuration
  parameters, legal values for those parameters, and the default value
  if they are not specified.  This is necessary also for manual
  installations so should entail no additional work for the
  developers.

* The group will require the long-term support of the quattor
  developers to respond to bug reports and feature requests.  Members
  of the Quattor Working Group are expected to provide as complete
  feedback as possible to ease the support.