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Website Transition

FAQ: opensolaris.org Website Transition

General Information

This FAQ contains general information about the Summer/Fall 2009 opensolaris.org website transition. Questions are grouped into four sections: General, Auth, XWiki, and known issues with content migration.

If you would like a question added or an answer expanded or otherwise improved, please send email to website-discuss AT opensolaris DOT org with "Transition FAQ" in the subject line. Please be as specific about a new question or what changes would make an existing answer more helpful.

Information about the website transition is also available in the Website Community Group, and a User Action FAQ is available.

NOTE: If you have questions about how your content looks on XWiki after the final content migration in October, please check the 'POST-MIGRATION' section of the content preparation page.

General Questions

What site components changed?

Two major areas were changed in Summer 2009 in separate Phases:

Why were the components changed?

  • The Auth application was added to enable better user authentication and account management on the site to support open development operations. It also lays the groundwork for Single Sign On capability on the site that will allow users to log in once and access all opensolaris.org applications.
  • The move to the XWiki-based site is a response to consistent user feedback since the initial launch in 2005 that the community wanted a wiki to better enable content editing.

When did the changes happen?

Changes happened in Phases:

  • The first phase was the move to using the Auth application. That phase was completed on August 3, 2009.
  • The second phase is the move to an XWiki-based site. That phase was completed October 26, 2009.
    Work is ongoing to update the Auth and XWiki applications and to integrate the other website applications with Auth. See the roadmap for approximate schedules.

What action did the community have to take?

At a very high level:

  • Phase 1: After the change to the new Auth user management application on August 3, 2009, users were required to validate their accounts within three months of the change (i.e., by November 3, 2009). Any accounts not validated within three months will be made inactive. Information about how to validate accounts was sent to all users before the change occurred, and reminder emails were sent during the three-month period after the change.
  • Phase 2: Prior to moving to the XWiki-based site on Mon, October 26, 2009, migrated site content was available for viewing on hub.opensolaris.org during an extensive three months migration process. The migration tools were not designed to migrate 100% of site content perfectly, so some manual work was necessary before and after the move. The hub site provided a way for the community to see migrated content so they could decide whether to make changes on the existing site so content would migrate more successfully or wait until after the move and make changes on the new site. In August, content preparation information was made available to the community, and content migrations began three times a week and ran through October so people could make changes to existing site content and see how it migrates. Community participation was needed to ensure that as much content as possible migrated successfully during the final move.

See the question below in the section on XWiki about how people were advised to prepare for content migration for Phase 2. Email was sent to all users registered on opensolaris.org about the transition. Different emails contained specifics about each phase and either instructions or pointers to instructions. Email updates and other information was also sent to the website-discuss AT opensolaris DOT org and opensolaris-announce AT opensolaris DOT org lists. All of the announcements were documented on the site as well.

Why couldn't new Projects and Community Groups be created on the site between Phase 1 and Phase 2?

After Phase 1 on August 3, the Auth database became the lead database. Changes made to that database are now 'reverse-migrated' to the old Tonic database until all applications integrate with Auth in the future. But there was no way to migrate data FROM the Tonic database TO the Auth database after August 3. Therefore, no new information could be stored in the Tonic database after August 3. And creating new Projects and Community Groups on the old site involved putting data in the Tonic database. However, if teams wanted to get a new collective started during that time, they could. And some teams did. They went through through the appropriate approval process and sent email to the website-admin list. The request was queued, and when we moved to XWiki, the new space was set up there. Before the move, mailing lists could be created as well. And pages could be created on the old site within an existing collective. So for example, if you wanted to start a new Project in the Test Community Group, you would seek approval, send email to website-admin and get your mailing list created. If the Test Community Group agreed, you could also set up pages within that Community Group to start posting information and getting your work started. Once the move to XWiki happened, a new Project space would have been created on the new site and you could have moved your data from the Community Group pages to the new Project space.

What site features went away?

Some site features went away in Phase 2 with the transition to XWiki. Information about site features was documented on the Site Features page for several months beforehand.

What site features were added?

In Phase 1, language support for 18 languages was added to the new Auth membership management application (as opposed to three languages for old site registration). Also, some new capabilities have been added in the Auth application, such as a search mechanism for users, viewing collective relationships, etc. In Phase 2, there was many new features added specific to XWiki. Information about site features can be found at the Site Features page.

What site features were implemented differently?

In Phase 1, user management changed, so how you register on the site and how you manage your account changed. How some role information is displayed on the site changed as well. Information about site features can be found on the Site Features page.

What else is changed?

The new website infrastructure implemented three types of collectives on the site, and roles are defined within each collective. See the User Action FAQ or the Roles & Collectives document for information about collectives and roles. The role names and privileges associated with different applications running on the site are different than the terminology used on the original portal site. For example, on the original site, a "Leader" in a collective was just someone with edit privileges for the pages of that collective, and a "Leader" in a Project was someone who also had commit rights to the Project's source repositories.

In the new infrastructure, the design approach is to define a core set of roles for each collective and have applications running on the site assign relevant privileges to those roles. A Leader in a Project has certain XWiki privileges, and within a Project, he/she may have commit rights to all the Project's source code repositories. A Leader is also able to assign/change roles within the Project. So a Project Leader is able to designate someone a Developer and then grant commit rights to one or more source code repositories to that Developer. XWiki interprets the role of Project Developer as being able to edit Project pages. A User Group Leader is able to designate someone an Affiliate and XWiki will interpret that role as being able to edit User Group pages. Again, refer to the User Action FAQ and the Roles & Collectives document for information about collectives and roles and the Site Features page for details about how site features and functionality changed as a result of the transitions.

What happened in Phase 1 to my current privileges, including my voting rights?

On August 3, privileges that a user already had migrated to the new system. Voting rights were part of the existing data that migrated. See the Data Migration document for detail about how existing data was moved.

Have these website changes been discussed openly in the community?

Yes. Information about restructuring the opensolaris.org infrastructure has been available since June 2007. Development versions of the new membership management application have been available since August 2008. Information about the site transition implementation plans was presented at the April 2009 Community Town Hall meeting and during four additional open conference calls afterwords. Email was sent to the website-discuss and opensolaris-announce lists, and all announcements and releases of code and applications were archived in the Website Community

Re: auth.opensolaris.org

How was the community prepared for the user management change?

The Roles & Collectives document and the Data Migration strategy were published to explain the roles and collectives and how data was migrated from three previous data sources to the new Auth database.

Will Single Sign On capability be provided for opensolaris.org?

Auth makes Single Sign On capability for the opensolaris.org website feasible. Eventually, all the applications running on the site will be integrated with Auth, and users will then have access to all those applications when they log in to the site.

Will Single Sign On capability be available for applications outside of opensolaris.org?

Yes. But the first priority is integrating all of the applications running on opensolaris.org. After that, documentation about how other applications can integrate will be made available.

Why must I set two security questions?

Security is necessary to ensure the integrity of the code published on opensolaris.org. If you have access to someone's account you could potentially use it to commit code to repositories as if you were them.

Where can I find more detail about auth.opensolaris.org features and functionality?

You can look at the site at http://auth.opensolaris.org. You can read the User Action FAQ.

Re: XWiki

Why was wiki functionality needed?


Community input since the initial launch in 2005 has included requests for wiki functionality on the main website to better enable site editing.

Why was XWiki chosen?


Requirements were gathered, discussed and finalized in the website community. Multiple packages were discussed and two were formally evaluated after the open requirements period. XWiki was chosen because it best met the requirements. Both the wiki requirements and the XWiki evaluation are published.

Is a copy of the old site available?


Yes, a copy of the old site is available for approximately six months after the transition at stage.opensolaris.org.

Was web page content migrated automatically?


A migration tool was been written that migrated content. The expectation was that migration via this tool would be about 80% successful. Content owners needed to review content and make updates once migration tests were complete. Content owners could also update their content to help ensure successful final migration. The website team ran 31 content migrations over the span of three months to prepare for the final move.

How was the community prepared for content migration?


Documentation was provided on the Content Preparations web page. In general, clean HTML or TML was best to start from. NOTE that many programs that generate HTML generate poorly-formed HTML that was problematic. Users were also asked to delete dead content, and make sure attachments on the files/downloads pages were still current.

How did users know whether they needed to do anything to their content on opensolaris.org?

During each migration, they were asked to look at their pages on hub.opensolaris.org and if anything seemed awry to check the Content Preparation page to see if any of the points outlined were the likely causes. Users were also asked to post comments and questions to website-discuss and bugs to defect.opensolaris.org.

How long did users have to prepare content for migration?

There were 31 content migrations over three months.

What happened if users did nothing to their content on opensolaris.org prior to migration?

The content was migrated as-is.

Does XWiki have a text mode editor?

When you edit a page, there are two tabs at the top: WYSIWYG and Wiki. If you choose the tab labeled WYSIWYG, you're using the WYSIWYG editor and if you choose Wiki, you're using the XWiki markup editor.

If you have text already in a separate file:

  • if you paste the text into the WYSIWYG editor, it's just there as text until you choose to format it;
  • if you paste the text into the Wiki editor, it's there as text but certain characters will be interpreted as Wiki markup when it displays.

If I use HTML on the current site, will I still be able to HTML on the new site?

For security and content integrity reasons, the site supports XWiki markup as the main page formatting language. HTML is supported in attachments, but it is not recommended for general use and it will be restricted in subsequent versions of XWiki. Also, the use of the HTML macro will also be restricted in subsequent versions and is not recommended for general use.

Will I be required to learn the XWiki markup language?

If you want to use XWiki markup, you may. Online instructions are available. However, one of the requirements from the community was that the chosen wiki support a WSIWYG editor, so that is also available.

Are URLs changing?

Yes. Moving to a wiki-based site means URLs will change.

Will existing links be redirected to the new site?

Yes. We implemented a full 1:1 mapping of all the pages on the old site to the pages on new XWiki site. The list will be cleaned periodically to remove 404s and links with no traffic (no hits to the destination page in 12 months). There will be no second redirect, however. So if the target page moves, the request will return a 404. We can add additional links, on an as-needed basis, such as if links are published in books or product readme files. However, we ask that teams migrate product links as soon as feasible after the transition. Also, regarding the front page redirects: opensolaris.org and www.opensolaris.org redirect to hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Main/ just as they used to redirect to www.opensolaris.org/os/ on the old site.

Can the title of my space's menu be edited?

No. The title of the menu for your space is auto-generated from the name of your Community Group, Project, or User Group. You can re-parent pages in your space and those changes will be reflected in the menu.

Is it possible to create an anchored link with the WYSIWYG editor?

Yes. In the WYSIWYG Editor, use the TableOfContents macro to create anchored links in your document.

What does it mean when I see link text followed by a question mark (e,g., MyPage?) in my migrated content?

The link points to a non-existent page. That doesn't mean the content isn't where it should be, it just means the link is incorrect. You should check your link on the corresponding stage.opensolaris.org page. If the problem isn't obvious, send email to website-discuss with specifics about the link text on the stage.opensolaris.org page so someone can investigate.

Were unhidden child pages of hidden parent pages preserved?

Yes. For example: stage.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/pages is hidden. But stage.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/pages/2006063003 is migrated to hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Community+Group+on/2006063003. NOTE: unhidden pages in a hidden space were not migrated.

Why does XWiki think my text file is a binary file?

What you're seeing is a "problem" with mime-types. Mime-types are a way to identify what sort of file content is being sent. To do that, the server needs a way of telling what the content is. The way Tomcat does it is to define the mime type based on extensions in a config file called web.xml. Be sure the file has the .txt extension, Then it should be recognized as a text file.

Where can I find more detail about XWiki features and functionality?

General XWiki information is available at the following links.

Why has blog aggregation changed on the new XWiki website?

Blog aggregation changed because the website applications have changed. However, users can still collect blogs on the new site, and the website team is exploring new ways to centralize and automate the process even further.

Before the migration to XWiki: opensolaris.org used to have three levels of blog aggregation: (1) blogs collected at the top level of the site, (2) blogs collected inside Community and Project spaces, and (3) blogs collected at planet.opensolaris.org. Additionally, the processes for deciding what blogs to aggregate was distributed among the owners of each of the spaces on the site, and all the mechanisms to implement the feeds were manual.

After the migration to XWiki: the new site does not have a top level blog aggregation feature. However, Collective Leaders, Affiliates, and Developers can still add blog feeds to their spaces, and planet.opensolaris.org remains the same. Also, Sun's website engineering team is exploring ways of providing a centralized blog feed directory from the site's database that can be easily aggregated in Collective spaces or on planet.opensolaris.org or externally. Watch the website-discuss mailing list and/or the infrastructure road map for updates on this proposal. In the mean time, Collective Leaders, Affiliates, and Developers can add blog feeds via the XWiki RSS macro. Just edit a page, click on the macro tab at the top left of the edit box, scroll to select the RSS macro, and enter the data in the fields provided. Send questions about this process to website-discuss.

Before XWiki I was able to see lists of leaders and observes in my Community Groups and Projects and also the sponsor relationships between groups. Where is that information on Wiki?

Go to http://auth.opensolaris.org/info/ for an early implementation of that data. Screens can be displayed for all users on the site, all Collectives and Electorates, and all of the relationships between the Community Groups and Projects. In the future, these screens will be improved, new summary screens will be added, and links will be added to all of the Collectives on XWiki so users will be able to easily access and search the data.

Re: Known issues with post-migration content editing

How can I file bugs and RFEs for Auth and XWiki?

Post to Bugzilla at defect.opensolaris.org:

  • For Auth, follow this path: Enter a new bug report -> Development -> Auth (Component = AuthWebapp)
  • For XWiki, follow this path: Enter a new bug report -> Development -> Website (Component = site-xwiki)

View the current bugs here.

What does the "Exception while parsing HTML" error mean?

This is an XWiki editor bug. Sometimes when switching to the XWiki editor from the WYSIWYG editor, you may see a blank page and/or this error message in red: "Exception while parsing HTML".  You might also see this error when trying to Preview changes in the WYSIWYG editor. Use the following workaround: Check the URL in the browser window. Make sure the text following the ? or & is only "editor=wiki". If that is the text already there, re-type some or all of the text. The XWiki markup should then be displayed. This bug in XWiki is fixed in the next version. When we upgrade the opensolaris.org site to XWiki 2.0.x, we will get the fix. The upgrade to XWiki 2.0 date is TBD.

Why is the Files page for my space empty?

The files page appears to be empty because attachments are not visible by default. To view your files, choose Show Attachments from the top navigation menu. We will fix this in updated versions of the application.

Why have underscores been removed from attachment file names?

XWiki removes '_' characters from file names in this version of the application. The migration process should take account of this, but may fail to modify all attachment links. XWiki will eventually support underscores in attachment file names, according the the XWiki development team at xwiki.org.

Why are some attachments missing?

Some attachments failed to get uploaded as part of the automated content migration. Manually attach the missing file to the appropriate XWiki page. Note that in some cases, links to the attachment may also be broken, which will also require manual intervention.

For example, images that link to a larger version of themselves,

[[[[image:small.png||alt="Small picture"]]>>large.png]]

and the larger image is not attached to the page. To remedy, attach the file and change the link to

[[[[image:small.png||alt="Small picture"]]>>attach:large.png]]

How do dashes work in XWiki?

Double dashes ("--") are XWiki syntax for strike out, so the migration process escapes these with a tilde (""). Unfortunately, the escape character is treated literally inside 'verbatim' blocks (<pre> </pre> in html and in XWiki) which might cause unwanted text on XWiki pages after the migration. If you use double dashes, check your pages and if needed, remove the extraneous tilde ("") in cases where double dashes are used inside verbatim blocks.

How are <pre> tags used in XWiki?

Pre tags translate to XWiki as verbatim blocks. Formatting is translated but won't result in formatting within the <pre> blocks. For example, if text is bold within a <pre> block, that will translate as:

** text that was to be bold **

showing up within the grey box.

After the transition, <pre> blocks need to be checked, and any formatting fixed on the XWiki page.

OpenSolaris FAQ Center

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Created by admin on 2009/10/26 12:18
Last modified by Jim Grisanzio on 2010/11/10 15:37
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