Feedback on installation and deployment processes

[Eduardo Pinheiro]

Hi all,

We've been hearing sporadically from some of you (and we acknowledge it) that the installation/onboarding process for a new user is, well, not easy nor smooth.

We'd like to understand more about your pain points so that we can make this process much better.

Please take some time to answer the following questions and provide feedback and suggestions -- new users and possibly your future you will thank you for any improvement we can make based on your feedback. Thank you!

Have you read the documentation for signing up a new user and attempted to sign up?

-- Did the process run smoothly?

-- If not, where did you hit a roadblock?

-- How can this be handled more graciously?

Have you read the documentation for setting up a new server and attempted to deploy it?

-- Did the process run smoothly?

-- If not, where did you hit a roadblock?

-- How can this be handled more graciously?

What else confused you in the setup process in general? Where there any settings or steps that surprised you or were counter-intuitive?

Have you (or anyone you know who has) written tools or scripts to automate the process or make it simpler or easier somehow? Can you describe this solution or point us to it (feel free to send code snippets, shell scripts, or anything else you'd like to share).

Any suggestions on how the onboarding process can be simpler?

Thanks!

[Antonio D'souza]

I read the new user signup doc and signed up but ran into a snag and filed a bug that is being addressed.

I sought help via this list was got unblocked.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Upspin" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to upspin+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to ups...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/upspin/bf8c4bd1-dffb-440f-bc0d-80a795056f83%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Akhil Indurti]

Have you read the documentation for signing up a new user and attempted to sign up?

Signing up a new user was not a problem. 

Have you read the documentation for setting up a new server and attempted to deploy it?

-- Did the process run smoothly? 

-- If not, where did you hit a roadblock?

The upspinserver is failing to start, consistently outputting the error message "Configuration file not found. Running in setup mode." I am trying to set up upsin behind a reverse proxy (nginx). I already have TLS set up, so I am trying to run the server with the -insecure flag, however I see

Configuration file not found. Running in setup mode.

https: serving insecure HTTP on ":8082"

https: cannot serve insecure HTTP on non-loopback address ":8082"

 

I've tried experimenting with the flags, explicitly setting localhost, running as root, and have made sure that a config file is in the directory.

Have you (or anyone you know who has) written tools or scripts to automate the process or make it simpler or easier somehow? Can you describe this solution or point us to it (feel free to send code snippets, shell scripts, or anything else you'd like to share).

For the systemd service configuration file, I used a small wrapper shell script that would have all of my command line flags.

Any suggestions on how the onboarding process can be simpler?

Barring these error message, the setup process/documentation is clear. One quick question though: The upspin overview states that the target audience of this software is "personal users, families or groups of friends," however both the processes involved in setting up the software and using the software (mounting a filesystem for example) seem to be too involved for my family and friends. Is upspin mainly geared towards individuals who are programmers?

[Michael Nguyen]

I have just started trying out Upspin yesterday so I will update this post with any feedback and roadblocks as I "go" (pun 100% intended).

 

Have you read the documentation for signing up a new user and attempted to sign up?
-- Did the process run smoothly?
-- If not, where did you hit a roadblock?
-- How can this be handled more graciously?

The installation of Go and installation of the upspin using `go get -u upspin.io/...` went smoothly, but I had to manually add the ~/go/bin. I would include a small aside about adding the path to Go binaries to the PATH. As someone new to Go, I was initially confused as to how to run upspin until I read about the Go's default workspace and saw the bin folder.

[Andrew Gerrand]

On 8 June 2017 at 14:50, Akhil Indurti <aind...@gmail.com> wrote:

The upspinserver is failing to start, consistently outputting the error message "Configuration file not found. Running in setup mode." I am trying to set up upsin behind a reverse proxy (nginx). I already have TLS set up, so I am trying to run the server with the -insecure flag, however I see

Configuration file not found. Running in setup mode.

https: serving insecure HTTP on ":8082"

https: cannot serve insecure HTTP on non-loopback address ":8082"

 

I've tried experimenting with the flags, explicitly setting localhost, running as root, and have made sure that a config file is in the directory.

So it doesn't work even with the flags "-insecure -http=localhost:8082" ? How about "-http=127.0.0.1:8082"? 

Barring these error message, the setup process/documentation is clear. One quick question though: The upspin overview states that the target audience of this software is "personal users, families or groups of friends," however both the processes involved in setting up the software and using the software (mounting a filesystem for example) seem to be too involved for my family and friends. Is upspin mainly geared towards individuals who are programmers?

The eventual goal is for it to be used by largely non-technical personal users, but we are a long way from that goal right now. Our README says "Upspin has rough edges, and is not yet suitable for non-technical users." We should probably add something to the overview about the current status of the project.

Andrew

[Aram Hăvărneanu]

General comments:

It is not always clear whether commands should be ran on your
workstation or your server. The 'local$' prompt is very confusing,
local to whom? What about 'laptop$' and 'server$'. Yes, many people
will use this on something other than a laptop, but it's very obvious
what it means.

The example e-mail address used, 'y...@gmail.com', is very confusing
to me. It's not about 'you', it's about 'me', it's my address, not
yours. The extra level of indirection added by the document addressing
'you' is confusing. How about `joh...@gmail.com` or
'alans...@gmail.com'? The address chosen is also confusing because
it's obvious 'y...@gmail.com' can never be a real gmail address.

It's also not immediately clear that you can use an e-mail address
under the domain you run the directory or storage server. In fact
there is a real potential name clash here with the server upspin
root name itself. It's quite possible the user will want to try out
ups...@domain.org as their first upspin root name, but that is the
name automatically chosen for the upspsinserver. There's no indication
about this in the 'Signing up a new user' document, as the server
root is only mentioned in the 'Setting up upspinserver', which is
something the user will presumably read only after they have already created
a user.

As other have mentioned it is very confusing that creating a user
must reference so far non-existent servers. At least the user must
be notified that this is okay and expected.

--
Aram Hăvărneanu

[Rob Pike]

Thanks for the feedback.

To rebut slightly one of your points, before $local appears it says this:

"Throughout this document, we will mark commands to be run on your
local machine with the shell prompt local$ and commands to be run on
your server with server%."

That seems very clear to me, but obviously it wasn't to you.

We have been migrating to a...@example.com everywhere, and should do so here.

There is major work underway to revamp this process completely, and
your feedback will help us make it good.

r-ob

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Upspin" group.

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to upspin+un...@googlegroups.com.

> To post to this group, send email to ups...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/upspin/CAEAzY3-zX2vYV3jnp86E4_U%2BNU99T_44set4WhFQ-FpiSdrC%3DQ%40mail.gmail.com.