fidzu : fedora

<figure class="aligncenter"></figure>

I have been recently working on incorporation of Fedora Accounts System's username search functionality in the project "Fedora Happiness Packets". After weeks of working, it's so overwhelming to see its on the verge of completion and being incorporated in the project.

About the project

The search functionality is used to find the name and email address of Fedora Accounts System's users from their username, making it a lot easier for any sender to send happiness packets to a particular user with the knowledge of just their username.

Getting started with python-fedora API

For incorporating the search, python-fedora API is used to retrieve the data. After authenticating as a genuine fas-user by passing credentials to AccountSystem, we can retrieve the data using the method person_by_username of a fas2 object.

Problems encountered

The solution to the problem statement was simple. What made the process challenging was lack of proper documentation of the Python-Fedora module. Since credentials like FAS username and FAS password were required for authenticating the user, the main goal was to use the data while the user logs into Fedora Happiness Packets.

I was aiming to use OpenID Connect, the client id, client secret which is used while registering the application to the OpenID provider (Ipsilon in this case). But the fas-client we have in python-fedora does not support OpenID Connect Authentication. This was the major problem which created a major stuck in the proceeding.

Another setback was Django's crispy forms. Since we are using Crispy forms to create models and render the layout in the front end, it was difficult for me to access individual form elements since the whole concept was very new to me.

Quick fix

After getting solution recommendation from other admins of Fedora, I finally got a solution to pass through. Since the search functionality requires only an authenticated user, which necessarily may not be the user who logs in, we can use a testing Username and testing Password in the case of development environment. For testing, we can make a json file from where the original credentials and the values are read into the project.

What I learnt?

I worked in Django for the very first time and it was such an overwhelming experience. I got to learn most of the concepts of Django. How it works, how the data flows, how data gets rendered in the front end, etc. The concept of Django's Crispy forms was something really new to me and I learnt how to deal with the it. Every time, I rely on documentation to get into details, but for the first time I was successfully able to get what is actually happening by going through the code manually.

My experience

I had really enjoyed working with such an welcoming community. Almost all of my doubts are cleared during this application process. What actually I learnt that I am gonna keep with myself forever is, "There is always an alternative solution to any problem! We just need to minimize the gap between its actual existence and our knowledge of its being".

Vote of Thanks!

Thanks to Justin (@jflory7) for helping me with my piles of doubts and queries. Jona (@jonatoni) was very kind to find explicit time to frame my ideas, thanks to her. A special thanks to Clement (@cverna) for helping me proceed with a viable solution, during one of the major hurdle I faced.

Thank you

The post FAS username search in Fedora Happiness Packets appeared first on Fedora Community Blog.

22 Mar 2019 8:15am GMT

The Fedora Security Lab was released as part of the Fedora 30 Candidate Beta cycle.

Grab it, test it and report back.

This time we don't want to miss the release because of some last minute changes.

22 Mar 2019 8:14am GMT

Today we tested with Fedora 29 a python module called DNF.
All users have used this tool.
This python module is not very documented on the internet.
A more complex example can be found on DNF tool documentation.
I tried to see what I can get from this module.
Let's start installing it with the pip tool:

$ pip install dnf --user

Here are some tests that I managed to run in the python shell.

[mythcat@desk ~]$ python
Python 2.7.15 (default, Oct 15 2018, 15:26:09) 
[GCC 8.2.1 20180801 (Red Hat 8.2.1-2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> import dnf
>>> dir(dnf)
['Base', 'Plugin', 'VERSION', '__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', '__package__', 
'__path__', '__version__', 'base', 'callback', 'cli', 'comps', 'conf', 'const', 'crypto', 'db', 
'dnf', 'dnssec', 'drpm', 'exceptions', 'goal', 'history', 'i18n', 'lock', 'logging', 'match_counter',
 'module', 'package', 'persistor', 'plugin', 'pycomp', 'query', 'repo', 'repodict', 'rpm', 'sack',
 'selector', 'subject', 'transaction', 'unicode_literals', 'util', 'warnings', 'yum']
>>> import dnf.conf
>>> print(dnf.conf.Conf())
[main]
assumeno: 0
assumeyes: 0
autocheck_running_kernel: 1
bandwidth: 0
best: 0
...
>>> import dnf.module
>>> import dnf.rpm
>>> import dnf.cli
>>> base = dnf.Base()
>>> base.update_cache()
True

This read all repositories:

>>> base.read_all_repos()

You need to read the sack for querying:

>>> base.fill_sack()
<dnf>
>>> base.sack_activation = True</dnf>

Create a query to matches all packages in sack:

>>> qr=base.sack.query() 

Get only available packages:

>>> qa=qr.available() 

Get only installed packages:

>>> qi=qr.installed()
>>> q_a=qa.run()
>>> for pkg in qi.run():
...     if pkg not in q_a:
...             print('%s.%s' % (pkg.name, pkg.arch))
... 
NetworkManager-openvpn.x86_64
NetworkManager-openvpn-gnome.x86_64
coolkey.x86_64
glibc-debuginfo.x86_64
glibc-debuginfo-common.x86_64
kernel.x86_64
kernel.x86_64
kernel-core.x86_64
kernel-core.x86_64

Get all packages installed on Linux:

>>> q_i=qi.run()
>>> for pkg in qi.run():
...     print('%s.%s' % (pkg.name, pkg.arch))

You can see more about the Python programming language on my blog.

21 Mar 2019 7:41pm GMT