Well, should we get started, um, Helen, I believe I think you're let us know if you can if you're not connecting or anything. And, but yeah so tonight is our meeting with creative discourse in the city council and so thank you so much Mary for joining and for supporting us during during today's you know big exciting day you know about year and a half in the making. And, and so on our agenda today, we are going to do kind of all the usual steps of the welcome intros agenda review minutes review, public comments, self education learning round table. Then we've got, you know, just checking in on report backs from other city committees, including the police review committee there's been a lot that's happened in the past month, and then the Montpelier live request I just wanted to circle back on. Um, and then we're looking over the recommendations from creative discourse and from the police review committee, and to prepare for the presentation before, you know, going over other business that a next meeting agenda and a join. And so I think, you know, we had planned to do some of this preparation, like asynchronously, and having just got the slides and the, you know, the report back from creative disperses yesterday, I didn't like I felt like I needed to do to see that to prepare for the presentation and then since I got them I was like, Oh, maybe we could have been preparing ahead of time but just wanting to recognize that I thought we would I would be more prepared kind of coming into this meeting then I am. Um, but how does that agenda look for folks any, anything to add or anything else we want to make sure we discuss. Cool. Okay. Um, well, even though I think we know everyone on the call should just do a quick round of you know intros has your month been. Any, any comment to share and then yeah any self education and so anything that you have participated in or been reading or any, any, anything to note kind of of what's been happening around social racial economic justice in your life. I can start chain on because I'm not sure if I will be connecting. Well, and this month was for me mostly preparing for my teaching. So I couldn't do really that much for myself, but I have been reading phone for forum and I was really upset seeing all this racist events. So it's remind me how our work is really important for our community. And yeah, that's all from me for today. Yes, I'll go, I'll go so Carol, my failure community justice center. We're working on, we're working on like, looking at, you know how we go forward in terms of like offering training, especially to volunteers, as we go into our new we're in our new fiscal year. So that's one of the things that we're continuing to think about is how we keep talking about these issues around around equity. And I'm also looking forward to working, you know as part of the leadership team of the city working on that like what are the things that are going to be implemented and how are we going to do that, especially with regard to policy. So for me, wrapping my head around, you know what what potential changes we make to policy and, and how we implement our process is, it just takes a while for me to really get there and to think about it so to make it really concrete. So three of our four staff members were able to attend a day long workshop with Tabitha Moore, who was presenting at the Summer Institute for restorative justice in schools in Lake Maury and so that was a really great reminder and new information about like the, you know, historical that set up are the systemic racism that we that we have now so that was helpful and again we talk about it all the time as a staff so we keep doing that work and reading, you know, reading books and having the conversations and so it's just a personally a big part of my life ongoing. So that's what we're at. I'll go next. I am a member of the public. I just sort of drifted over from the homelessness task force and then I show up in the housing committee and you know I just sort of hot city committees that seem to impact. The hunger mountain co op diversity committee. And so I kind of like to watch and see what's happening here so that I can see if there are any linkages. So, anyway, my name is Carolyn read path and I'm a citizen month earlier. I'll report. I've been mostly much of my time was spent working on the with the police review committee getting our report together and sort of going through revisions and discuss discussing our recommendations. Otherwise I've been reading articles. I mean this is focused a lot of my attention on policing so I've been reading articles about policing around the country. And, and following that there was an interesting article in the New York or about the Supreme Court probably taking up and maybe overturning affirmative action, or in education, which was very alarming. And at this point it affects mostly higher education but of course you can affect all sorts of things in education so I just do a lot of reading and that's very depressing. But, but it is what it is. So, that's why we have this committee I guess. Yeah, and I just I haven't read that article but I just found it when you were talking and put it in the chat and I'm excited to read it. Yeah, and I'm Shayna Casper on Ken Street and I. Yeah, I just want I really have been I went to the meeting with reviewing all of the recommendations from the police review committee and I think I just want to express my like really deep like gratitude for the really thorough and like you know, seeking out a lot of different perspectives and being able to kind of incorporate so much of that into a series of recommendations and to have like a really robust conversation for many, many, many hours that I was, you know, doing other things during and to be engaged during that during that whole time to really make sure that you know coming up with good recommendations to bring forward to City Council tonight so yeah it was really, really grateful and excited about that work and how it overlaps with our work. And I think that is is really, really the biggest thing for for for me right now. Lauren I think are you lost. So, so good morning everyone Lauren hurl the City Council liaison with the with the committee and yes, I'm feeling similar to Carol of school starting next week. The quick slip into fall but but anyway yeah it's been definitely the summer I've been serving with Michael police review committee which has been a big big part of the summer work and excited to see. The progress and having a report and a whole suite of recommendations there and then how the work that will be presented tonight from creative discourse. I'm excited and like as we get into strategic planning for the Council and budget season, like, I feel like we're, we're ready in a way that you know it's like the right timing to have all this ready so excited to be with you all. Thanks all. And thank you Michael for circling the minutes I'm sorry I did not see those at all. And I'm one of you folks have gotten that email and want to pull it up. So can review and approve the meeting minutes. What I'm noticing is just on Pellens name is PEL I am. Oh, I get it wrong every other time every other time right it's 5050 and as an SHA I and I understand. And my apologies. Sorry. It's okay no problem. I think I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as amended. Hold on a second here sorry, so people still reading reading faces. And I think Lauren wasn't there and Michael wrote them so Pell and I think you need to second them. Sorry, there we go. If you're ready to do that. I second, all in favor. Any opposed. Awesome. Thanks for approving the minutes. Thank you for taking them Michael. Yeah, and you're good for taking them today as well. I should have started the meeting off with that that Cameron checked in with me and wanted to like want to make sure we're doing this right by city rules so apologies Cameron, if you're watching. Okay. So, moving to kind of report back some other related city committee is I just really quickly, you know, got the request from Montpelier alive to, to kind of work with them in a in like with their DEI committee to figure out what's needed for their Montpelier alive and their process. As you know they got a, a, they hired a consultant to like basically like start working on writing a report but there was kind of no real follow through or like next steps coming out of that and so they're really excited about wanting to dive in a lot deeper and looking for support from CJ. And so I can do it but I would rather not do it alone if anyone else is interested in supporting Montpelier alive through this process as anyone. Would anyone be interested in scheduling a time with their, that DEI committee of Montpelier alive with me. I can do it Shayna. Awesome. Great. Thanks Ellen. Yeah, sure. Any other committees before kind of diving into the police review committee. I'll also just say the public restroom committee is not yet met. I think you're going to be the point staff person on. Is that right? No, never mind. Never mind. Not throwing you under the bus. Okay. All right, Michael Lauren police review committee kind of report back. And I can also put the link in for all of the recommendations in the chat here as well. Let's start Michael. Well, I don't have it in front of me here so let me see if I can pull it up too. We, we ended up. We ended up making one about a dozen visit recommendations is it that many. I'm going to have to I'm going to go at get out of another way. Okay. So why don't you start and learn and I'll try to pull up the document. Sure. So I guess just like process wise, where we are just to get everyone up to speed. So the committee. We had a few meetings and we, you know, did our final set of recommendations and, you know, essentially like people who are on the committee were putting forward recommendations they were interested in making so you know we heard a series of ideas from the community input processes people had, you know, ideas that they were bringing based on their research and all that. There certainly was a set of ideas that came up that we didn't have capacity or time to get to. But we did make a number of recommendations which is what Michael is pulling up and maybe I don't know how much detail you want to get into Shayna, but we could quickly run through them or at least I don't know if the version of the draft report might be a easier way to see them all in one place than the link that you sent around but that's what I find on the online. Yeah, I don't think it's like circulated to the public yet. But we're going to be reviewing the final draft, and then sending it out to the public. I think that's the isn't that the process plan that we agree. Yeah, so we're meeting next week. We had a full compilation of the report we were providing input and we've got like one more meeting to do any last feedback on that before we send it out to the public and trying to get it back out to the public before we finalize so it's going to be more like I think early October that we're going to be presenting that to Council. But so there is time if anyone has capacity and interest to provide feedback style on the report. So we had essentially decided that we were going to recommend to Council to continue the, the committee, you know whether or not every single individual wants to continue but to continue it at least for a next week. And then there again was a set of ideas that we, you know, didn't have a chance to work through. So, you know, obviously there's a ton of issues that could have could be looked into so I think it's something an ongoing forum for for those conversations was something we were going to recommend as part of that. Okay. I finally got to this recommendation section so I'll just go through them very quickly and let and if you want to know the rationale behind any of them that the report includes a rationale for each of the recommendations that we make. Which one is for an additional social worker for additional social worker resources recommendations that the city council should add 1.5 full time equivalent social workers to the MPD contracted through Washington County mental health services, in order to fortify a full time equivalent co correspondent model, one full time equivalent social worker would be dedicated exclusively to case management and follow up. The additional half time position would be dedicated to crisis response bringing MPD to one full time equivalent crisis response social worker. That's that one. The next one was body worn cameras. The recommendation is Montpelio City Council should budget and plan for the purchase deployment archiving use and all requirements and policies associated with the use of body cameras worn body worn cameras for all officers while on field body worn cameras will not be used by the MPD until the Montpelio City Council finalizes the policy for the training of officers and the use of body worn cameras that one protects privacy and rights to ensures officer accountability. This policy ensures transparency for incorporates best practices and records management and five tracks and analyzes their impact. It's part of the development of this policy the Montpelio City Council should review the ACLU Vermont criteria for body worn cameras policies and the Vermont law enforcement advisory board body worn cameras policy draft July 20, 2021. Community engagement protocol after use of force instance. Recommendation is that the Montpelio City Council should require MPD to establish a community engagement protocol for an officer involved shooting incidents. That policy should follow best practices including early, full and proactive information sharing with community members and the media. In trauma area community meetings and educating and engaging community leaders and stakeholders. This approach could also be used for other major use of force incidents as City Council and MPD see fit. Next one is data transparency recommendation this has a bunch of recommendations. The City Council should direct the MPD to develop a comprehensive data and transparency plan that identifies one policing data to be collected and posted on the city of Montpelio's website, and to specific data management practices for each category of policing data. As part of this process the City Council should consult the policing policing projects, data and transparency framework for policing agencies for guidance on what data to collect and make available to the public and the best practices for regarding format and data. Recommendation to the City Council should direct the city to develop an accessible web page and easy to use dashboard for public access to policing data in raw format summaries and trends. In addition summaries available of available policing data with a link to the web page should be included in the MPD section of the annual report. That's that's all for that and then the fair and impartial policing. The recommendation is Montpelio Police Council Montpelio City Council should direct MPD to assess and strengthen the city's fair and impartial improved policy policing policy to better implement rights, clarify the circumstances when officers may consider personal characteristics or immigration status when making law enforcement decisions and ensure processes and procedures are provided in an equitable and impartial way. Officer misconduct internal affairs. The City Council should create a civilian Montpelio Police Advisory Committee to review annually all allegations of misconduct by the MPD and advise the City Council with respect to all rules and policies relating to internal affairs. Committee should consist of three to five members at least one of whom should be an attorney and one of whom should be a retired police officer to be appointed by the City Council. And one of the members should represent historically marginalized stakeholders, e.g. housing unstable BIPOC, LGBTQIA plus committee members must complete internal affairs training and MPAC shall provide that's the advisory committee shall provide an annual report to the City Council on recommendations and recommendations. Recommend to the City Council should direct MPD to review and revise the MPD internal affairs citizen complaints policy, dated February 18 2015 to ensure consistency with Act 56 of 2017, which mandates that all agencies have quote, an effective internal affairs program and quote in place that meets certain requirements as part of this process the City Council should provide an opportunity for public review and comment of any new policy. Recommendation three all individuals MPD employees and or independent entities who are assigned to be an investigator of officer misconduct should receive comprehensive internal affairs training recommendation for under this one, the city of Montpelio should advocate for directly and or through the engagement of local legislators, the following legislative reforms, establishing office of the Inspector General to provide independent reviews of Vermont law agencies, establish a statewide law enforcement advisory council, based on the existing state policy advisory commission in coordination with the criminal justice training Council, so that all law enforcement agencies have consistent internal affairs standards review processes and civilian oversights and establish regional internal affairs units to promote fair and impartial investigations of officer misconduct. So consideration militarization recommendation is Montpelio City Council should ban MPD's application for cold controlled equipment and quote, commonly known as military equipment through the US Department of Defense's excess property programs, as well as the 1033 program. If MPD seeks to acquire new items on the 1033 program controlled list, not used by the department notice should be provided to the city council public drinking and street outreach recommendation one Montpelio City Council should repeal its ordinance related to drinking drinking in public places. Chapter two article eight section 11800 Section two given state law it is our understanding that the Montpelio City Council cannot decriminalize public drinking, but the city council should direct MPD to deep prioritize their response to public drinking calls and instead ensure alcohol related calls associated with non criminal conduct, be sent to bits American Haven street outreach workers. If a street outreach worker was unavailable calls can be routed to MPD. Alcohol related calls associated with criminal conduct will continue to be routed to MPD is recommended is recommended that appropriate criminal charges related to public drinking be sent to the Community Justice Center and follow their existing protocols. Recommendation three on this is Montpelio City Council should increase its financial support of bits American Havens regional street outreach workers to 1.5 full time equivalents, allowing the good Samaritan to hire a full time street outreach worker. In addition to the current part time 32 hours a week worker to handle the current and future volume of outreach needs of the unhoused population, and to manage the increased need associated with recommendation to and recommendation three is increased financial resources. Oh, that's that's sorry. Sorry, recommendation for Montpelio City Council should ensure training for one MPD officers so they understand what to look for medically when they do wellness checks on intoxicated people and how to de escalate encounters to street work street outreach workers so they understand what to look for medically when they do wellness checks on intoxicated people and how to de escalate encounters. Recommendation five Montpelio City Council should review or direct a future committee to review all public safety related ordinances to ensure they conform to modern day society and reflect the will of the city's people. Let's see go on then to recruitment. Montpelio City Council should authorize revisions of the MPD minimum requirements for hiring office to include a minimum of one year of post secondary education associates degree preferred or equivalent life and or internship experience. To a demonstrated commitment to volunteer or pay to volunteer or paid community service. I thought we had just not. I thought we had recommended 18 raising the rate age rate from 18 to 21 but I guess that got lost somewhere. Let's talk about that when we get there.  Recommendation one Montpelio City Council should support h 2268 of 2021, 2021, which repeals prostitution laws while retaining felony human trafficking laws that prohibit recruiting enticing harboring transporting providing or obtaining a minor for the purpose of commercial sex. Prioritizing a minor for commercial sex recruiting enticing harboring transporting providing or obtaining any person through force fraud or coercion for the purpose of having the person engage in commercial sex.  Recommendation to Montpelio should repeal its prostitution ordinances chapter 11 article eight sections 11705 to 707, which criminalizing which criminalize housing for sex workers.  Recommendation three MPD should continue to deep prioritize the investigation of consensual sex work and instead prioritize human trafficking coercion and when force is that issue. Next topic. Training adolescent behavior MPD offices should receive training and under in understanding and responding to early adolescent and adolescent behavior as a required supplement to basic level two and basic level three training. This training should begin as soon as possible under the authority of the Vermont criminal justice councils rule 13 rule 13, but should also be considered and urged as part of the Vermont police academies basic levels, basic basic training for level two and level crowd control Montpelio City Council should ensure MPD one develops written goals policies procedures and priorities for crowd control, including mass demonstrations and mass gatherings for political purposes, as well as festivals and celebrations, planned and permitted spontaneous demonstrations or events that draw large numbers of participants that. So, policies that reflect principles and outlines outlined in the middle Madison model, e.g. protecting First Amendment rights communication, creating a psychological bond with demonstrators does de escalation preservation of life over property, etc. So routinely trains all relevant police department personnel on goals policies procedures and priorities related to crowd control as outlined and defined in paragraph one and training scenario based training recommendation Montpelio City Council should a plan and implement implementation of current offerings for its rule 13 in service training requirements be expand opportunities for officers of the MPD to participate in more advanced training learning opportunities and see assess the budgetary implications of additional training. These should include one scenario based courses courses and interactive instruction, for example, more time and attention to discussion, as opposed to lecture dominated courses, where possible and appropriate. Two, recruiting volunteers or paying small stipends for role players and scenario based courses. Three, working with area educators to develop course offerings and ethics multicultural fiction and nonfiction, local and state history and social sciences and such such as anthropology psychology and sociology. All such courses should include a significant amount of time for participant to screw this drug discussion, not destruction. Why participate for why participation in the Vermont, wider participation in the Vermont police academies executive leadership Institute and supervision supervisor leadership Institute. The city council should take into action into account, both the direct costs tuition and indirect costs, lodging when necessary food personal personnel replacement and overtime costs, etc. For these multi day institutes. Council should take the initiative initiative to join with other city and town governing boards to advocate for scenario based training and lecture discussion format is prominent features of basic training for level 23 at the Vermont police academy. The city council should join with other city and town governing boards to advocate for review and if necessary revision of the process and criteria for certifying the credentials of instructors and the content and format of courses at the academy and that in service training. Yeah, I think those are all of the 12 or 13 points right there's that. Those are the, those are the recommendations and recommendations. Yeah, as in the process from here is that those are going to go back out for public is there going to be like public comment period like hearings and things or that's why. No hearings have we haven't discussed hearings to the plan that they would whatever comments come in. The committee will review and I'm not, I'm not sure what are the procedures after that. Okay. That was long and I apologize for it but if you didn't have the text in front of you. At least to have something when I have the text and you know 50 different documents so it was helpful to pull them all out and write them all together for me at least. So I think like my big question, you know, first of all, does anyone have any questions or concerns about these points like I know I definitely do but like would it make sense for the police review committee to have see Jack right like a response as a an additional city committee about like how, like we as see Jack feel about you know maybe one or two of these points or as the recommendations as a whole, like what would be an appropriate next step here. There's also to say, you know, so we're also going to, you know, go from this to talking about the recommendations from creative discourses, half of which are in city services and half of which are in policing, and are about, you know, restorative process to after use of force incidents which is one of the recommendations, clarify the roles and expectations of law enforcement officers and the greater vision for public safety and city engagement processes. I acknowledge that the feedback of law enforcement officers prisons is often contradictory and opposing some community members want greater police presence so less police presence underlying both appears to be a desire to build trust personal relationships with the community and all efforts to build trust and center the voices and needs of those most directly impacted by police violence locally and nationally, and to strive for maximum transparency. So those are like some of the pieces here and obviously the recommendations don't address like body cameras and don't address, you know, social workers and don't yeah, don't address a lot of the pieces fair and impartial policing, you know, a lot of the recommendations that we have. And that our process used, you know, some of the conversations with like some of the focus group conversations and to, to come up with these, these policing recommendations and so I mean yeah because ultimately, you know, these are just the recommendations that need to be implemented by city staff. And so I think you know there's a lot more work that needs to be done from to get these, you know, these recommendations over the finish line. And so, I mean yeah like Michael Lauren sorry saw you went off video Lauren like would it be helpful for police review committee to. So half the committee is engaged I suppose as well so it's like a little bit of overlap anyway, but of pulling out some of the key recommendations for. Well, your your your last observation was the one that it's got me stumped because since two of us are on both. Yeah, it's makes it a little awkward for us to sign on to a comment from the committee. But, but and I don't know how to resolve that. Maybe it's just as individuals then to like just calling on me and Pellan to like submit something. Yeah, and I think that I think you could do that you could you could write a single one and say that the three of you are member are our members of this of C Jack. And so that you're not writing. And then Jeremy also. Yeah, Jeremy, yep. You're not writing for and you can explain you're not ready for the committee because two of our two of the committee members are on the both but that these are then then go on with whatever you want to say. Yeah, I think that's, that's the fair way to do it. Okay getting knots from Mary to that would make sense. And Carolyn and Carol, are you guys have you guys been involved in this process and I apologize that this is total if this is just repeat for everyone except for me and Pellan. So. Now I haven't been involved in the process. So I'm, I lost the sound for a while, and I also lost video and got confused there for a while so I missed some of the things that you were just talking about. See, Lauren got really unstable to there. I don't know what happened for me right now. I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, so I had been attending the police review committee meetings and I wasn't able to for a while same thing with this meeting there was a period of time where I just had conflicts and couldn't couldn't be here. So, in terms of being involved. I mean I'm not really accept that I'm part of the leadership team so I'm paying attention to what's happening and, and thinking about how it's impacting our work so you know I notice a mention about sending cases to sort of justice so that's really what my interest is in you know understanding that and making sure that when those recommendations are made that they're connecting with us so that it makes sense that it's actually sent to us. And then again with the implementation and how we, how did you know this work informs our policies and our policy development, and how we do our work so that's, that's why I'm showing up otherwise, not directly in involved in either committee except you've seen me here. One of the things that's important to me is in looking at the outreach worker and that kind of thing because that overlaps into what how the homeless are treated. So, I was really heartened to see that additional request, because I know that the current outreach worker. I work with her fairly closely and she's overreaching. It's a very time consuming job. Well okay so I think what I'm hearing is maybe not writing something as committees like as the homelessness task force or as restorative justice but like, you know RSC Jack but as as you know engaging in these recommendations like as individuals and as so so I think what I'm believing is the next steps of this process are that it's going to be. There's, there's, there's opportunity for presentations to city council opportunities for public comment opportunities for input before all before city council actually votes on these recommendations. So, and then the voting then would go then to budget process which is starting up in a few weeks as well. So there's definitely still opportunities for input but this is kind of like the recommend the launchpad for for those recommendations. That also right. And anything else with police review committee it does kind of dovetail to our next agenda item but. Lauren. Yeah, and so sorry I missed a big chunk of that. Did did you mention, like one of the things that were is not embedded in the actual report but the committee is keeping track of a list of topics that we didn't get to which, like, I think I heard you note Shayna like not everything that's in the creative discourse report exactly reflected and so those would be the kinds of things on like the next phase of this committee as it's ongoing so we just want to make sure that that there's an internal list we're maintaining that we would pass on to the next committee or you know I think a lot of them might be the same people but there might be some change over. I just want to make sure that that's all captured in addition to whatever input I think that all makes sense to me that given the timeline like individuals would weigh in and then I think as see Jack we could think about when councils actually taking stuff up and there's that whole process if we'd want a more formal role in providing input. Okay. I think that sounds good. And yeah and just thank you again to Michael and Lauren for your engagement in this process. So grateful to have you guys. Okay, and so then diving into preparing for tonight and the creative discourse presentation. And so Keisha will be there in person at the city council meeting and Tabitha will be joining by computer and the, the kind of initial plan that we had outlined last. And so, and also so they're about half they're like in the middle of the agenda. And they've got like about an hour worth of content so like introducing it sharing the recommendations taking fielding questions and they've got a couple of prompt questions on their slides, but that is kind of after something from the agenda and they have more things on the agenda from here so the original plan that we discussed last month was that see Jack will kind of introduce creative discourse provide some context as to why we wanted to do this, creative discourse will do their presentation. And then, potentially, we would kind of follow up either in the Q&A or just to kind of close out of just like saying that we want to like support the city council to do this and, you know, we want to, you know, yeah we want to support the implementation of these recommendations so like how what that's going to look forward to is basically saying like, you know, as we're going into the budgeting process like we want to make sure that this is, you know, being put in as recommendations, you know, as this is, you know, as we're achieving kind of these bigger goals how can we like break this down into like incremental like goals that we can to move up to that to these to these larger goals. And then just, you know, as I can just do it briefly kind of as like a heads up of like what is in that recommendation sorry pulling it back up real quick. I already kind of read out the policing pieces but for city services, it's like greater accommodations for people with disabilities, improving the website, having simplified content multiple languages, having anti racism trainings for staff, keeping remote meeting option participation options, improve communication and outreach targeted to underserved populations, acknowledge receipt of communication to city counselors, continue to learn what people need. And then you know addressing house housing issues and discrimination towards people experiencing homelessness, reviewing and advising policies through an equity lens and hiring more women and black indigenous people of color staff. Some of these like can be implemented immediately and it's just a matter of like supporting that happening so like acknowledging receipt of communication to city counselors right I'm just like encouraging city counselors to send a reply when they get emails and after they've read them, but then other things like, you know, housing addressing housing issues, there's like that's kind of a per, you know, not perennial but it's an issue that there's a whole committee working on and has been for years. And so then with that to like offering stipends for residents for service, serving on boards and commissions and assigning initial outreach LAP households by city staff person to assess unmet needs and to develop a language access plan, and implement plans to make public spaces and services more accessible. So it's like some of these maybe could just be punted to other committee, you know, like ADA committee for building access, for example. But like we could, we could, you know, do as much as like step up and volunteer to drive these things forward, which I think is the initial idea of like fundraising to be able to continue the implementation of these recommendations, and we could task this to the city council and have them make the plan for implementation of these recommendations, you know, after discussion and acknowledging that these recommendations are priorities. Sorry, that was now just me a lot of my spitballing, but what do folks think. Yes, I think it's good idea for it's to Jack just to propose ways in which you can continue to participate in this process. That's certainly we are I think a standing committee so we have, you know, the council know that they can ask us to, to participate in one way and to make the offer and be proactive about it. I'm not sure about the fundraising probably haven't been so successful for our own. And I'm not sure that, and I think that's always going to be the stumbling block how, how, if there is money out there, how to access it and that's the cities, I think that's the city's responsibility. I think who are assigned to be looking around for grants, and it's going to be grants that are going to do it. And they're going to have to be unfortunately they got to be federal because, as we discovered most foundations will not give to give money to cities municipalities only given to 501 C threes. And as well I mean I think we thought the maybe some of his recommendations could be things that would be fundable but like, I think getting, you know, doing LEP outreach or doing like stipends for participation those are things that are not going to be possible for grants. So, and these are things that others, others, you know, cities have done as it's just did has a $32,000 line item budget for providing stipends to prefer participants in, you know, in committees and so I think like there's, there's good exemplars of what this could look like and will make, you know, make a big difference so. Yeah, so I guess I kind of was thinking like initially, when we met last month thinking this would be like a lot more formal of like, here's what we're recommending to do as next steps I think I'm coming in and maybe I'm hearing from you Michael is being like, we want to lean on this city, a little bit more here to be to be pushing forward these recommendations and to offer ourselves as support to make that happen. Is that right. Yeah. And that will help us then to with our own range planning. Yeah, Helen, Lauren, what do you guys think about this plan for tonight. It sounds good for me. Yeah, I think that sounds good. This is Lauren on the phone. Sorry, my internet got so bad. Yeah, but other, I think it's like both the jack providing support and accountability like we're going to be continuing to show up regularly and like check in on how it's going with the priorities and like, maintain, ensure like councils maintaining the focus and prioritizing this work. I think it's the full council feels like, oh, people are going to be watching the follow through not just maybe some good sentiments tonight but that would be helpful as well as the support and accountability. And accountability like offering, you know, checking in every four months, you know, or checking in quarterly to to ask questions about how the implementation is going to seek, seek input from residents about how they're feeling this is being implemented. Does that, would that make sense. Yeah, I think just just knowing like this is going to be ongoing and like that we're going to be checking in and reporting back regularly. I think it would keep keep the focus on it for a council. Yeah. And so then as we're kind of the next phase coming out of this is going into the budgeting process and going into that we are, you know, asking for $10,000 or we, you know, have a commitment from the city for an additional $10,000 for years for continuing this process. Do we anticipate there being additional funds needed to, to implement this like I'm thinking like the LEP outreach in particular. And like, I don't necessarily think we need to bring that up on today's call but of like our today's you know city council meeting, but for future work. Yeah, what would that look like. I'm gonna mute for that train. Several months ago we talked about having the city history rewritten and sending it over to some historians, and that would entail some costs and I assume that would come out of the $10,000. Michael do you have an update from that. Yeah, I have said, I've contacted two people who have agreed to do some work on this. One is the state archaeologist who said he would, he would be happy to rewrite the first section, and give a little bit more information about the native native population. And the other is Paul Carnahan who with another guy published a book of mostly photographic history but it has essays and he can easily adapt some of the, the introductory essays to new sections of the report. And I volunteered to be the editor and kind of project coordinator. I have a very modest budget, and I sent the numbers over to to Carolyn Cameron, and she's got plenty else to do on her plate so she hasn't responded to that. And I'm waiting to hear from her, although the other the guys have that I contacted agreed to go forward with it, but I haven't yet heard that she, she said they'd find. It was a small amount. They find the money for it so I think we can depend on it happening. I asked the, the two writers to, to get text to me at the end of this month, if possible, but I pointed out there was no tremendous rush for this. And there'll be new, there'll be new illustrations as well. Paul Carnahan at the, at the most historical society will use the VHS photo, photo library to find more convincing and informative photographs and what's on this on the current page. And it will certainly will only be a few, maybe $300 at most. So, it's not a big deal. And Cameron's not, not worried about that. So far as I can tell, she didn't say I will, you know, she didn't say stop the press. So, that's where we are. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks for moving forward on it. You're welcome. Yeah. So, yeah, thank you, Michael. And I think maybe for tonight, it could be helpful, just as part of the conversation around ongoing work and support just making clear, you know, that our expectation was, you know, we knew as a city when we committed to 10,000 that this was going to be an ongoing so, you know, 10,000 ongoing for the work with our consultants and through the work that's been done and the report that council is receiving tonight, then there's, you know, some recommendations that have budget implications and that, you know, as the Jack, we, you know, we know the budget process is coming up and we'll be working with Cameron and and city staff on estimates of what what other budget recommendations we might have. Like, I think that should be just you totally separately from the 10,000 assuming that we think, I mean, we could discuss that, I guess, if we think like ongoing contract with creative discourse or I thought that's what we had generally been thinking about I would use it all as like additional expenditures, and that we could offer to, you know, get better estimates and have that ready for kind of budget season. One thing that occurred to me is maybe you want to partner with Kellogg Hubbard library and expanding any of their resource materials or trainings, you know, they do a lot of things with children in this area. And we might want to set aside some money to encourage them to do more. Yeah, I mean this this this kind of plan that we developed out with creative discourses kind of had five main parts and we've kind of done the first two which is like identify effective strategies to engage with and include under server underrepresented communities in Montpelier capture these concerns and needs. And then the next stages are about building the capacity for formal and informal leaders to apply social justice lens to their analysis engagement service delivery and decision making kind of also what we kind of initially did with our, the, the committee chair meeting, and then, you know, promoting the emergence of leadership that reflects diversity of its populace and contribute to ongoing development of a vibrant inclusive welcoming community that attracts people to the region. And so it's, you know, also, you know, very big picture visionary phases but like super like here's when we've completed this phase and here we're going to the next one. But so that we like we are, you know, you know, we said this will be a two year process and this is kind of the first the first phase was doing this equity audit. So now it's about implementation will be, you know, ongoing and forever as well being the audit. But so just to, I just want to affirm here real quick. I also think that we want to make sure that this 10 K is for continuing this process of building out this leadership and continuing to have that like external accountability for the implementation and making the plan for that. In addition to additional budget recommendations for that implementation doesn't. And so I agree with Lauren I guess is what I'm trying to say. So back to council tonight. Not just stand ready to, you know, go further and sort of amorphous what you're going to say that we're available to support this. But I think I flesh that out a little bit more that is based on the studies that you have done here are our next steps. Yeah. It's clear that this committee has a reason for going forward, not just to support council but also to move ahead and making the community more inclusive. Right. And so that's I think the recommendations are, you know, stipends for serving on boards. The community outreach access more accessible spaces and websites. And, and then the police recommendations which I think we're kind of recognizing here and a little bit more punting to the place review committee process which will be a little few months later. But those those feel like the right, I mean, we had we had this conversation last month but like those being the like next recommendations for the city and implementing this plan. And as far as like what that budget would look like, I have no idea. I think we have like absolutely no like no clue what lep outreach budgets look like. So, um, okay. I mean, yeah, what anything else for planning to the meeting tonight. Sorry. We can end early once again. I'm just looking over my notes here real quick sorry. Okay.  Um, I think, yeah, we've, I just want to recognize in other business of kind of what Pellan was saying all of the, you know, conversation that's been happening in front porch forum of kind of overt interpersonal racism that's been happening in the city over the past few weeks. And kind of in response to that I did post about the city council meeting tonight and encouraging folks to comment to like share about what's happening and maybe I can can address that kind of in the opening comments. Um, but yeah, just kind of reached out to people individually via, you know, through the, you know, reply to front porch forum. But other than that, I think, you know, it's just kind of like building the base so that this type of thing doesn't happen again but, you know, not not like not knowing if there is any type of like harm reduction or sort of process because we don't know who the perpetrators are because it's, you know, being shouted out a car windows kind of thing. And so yeah just if there's any other kind of reflections from this. That's kind of optic in this overt racism that's at least being reported publicly on front porch forum. And then there's also another email that I just wanted to bring up real quick. And also the conversation that's been happening around the proposed encampment policy. And again, you know, just lots of comments and threads on front porch forum with, you know, a great lack of empathy or misunderstanding of the issues or general nindiness, you know, not in my backyard. So I recognizing that there is like a lot more support, you know, like or under, you know, if I'm of people with great, you know, a lot of a lot of work happening with the homelessness task force I feel like I did not super engage in those in those conversations or, but yeah I didn't know if there was, you know, anything more that we wanted to discuss, just about that kind of hot button conversation on front porch forum over the past month. And I guess Carolyn like, yeah, where do as, as the resident homelessness task force member here, any, yeah, any kind of update on on the encampment policy. We're supposed to look at the current version today at our meeting. Okay. I mean the thing that saddens me is that the original one came out and I thought it was a very humane thing that provided guidance this is my personal feeling. The guidance to city employees on how to interact with the unhoused people. It's now become more. The first page is about the property ties budget, and it's become much more focused on protecting the landscape and people's rights, people who live here's rights. And that saddens me. It saddens me because it has changed character. What it tells me is what, again, this is a personal opinion was that we should have an area where it is acceptable. The outset we should have had an area so as in all things, I view it now as an opening for us to do something more constructive about two things. An encampment area of some sort like, I'm not so sure about tiny homes but something along that line and the other thing is to do something more about the sanitation facilities in the community. And so I volunteer to be on what I call the potty committee, because old people have potty needs and little kids we all know have potty needs and tourists definitely do that I think we can do something there that will address sanitation issues on a more general level community. So, you know it's like, you know one door closes another door opens, but it's sadden me to see the shift in emphasis. Yeah. And you're aware that's from my understanding from, you know, having conversations on the leadership team about this policy and getting regular updates, you know, to review. The parks commission had a lot to do with guiding how the changes were made.  So, you know, that's, that's just what it is. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is that, you know, get my reflection on it. And if that's what the community wants, then I think we need to come up with another solution. And basically we need to have a long term solution because we're going to see a homeless issue in some form or another forever. And it may be only a day or two and maybe a week or two and maybe longer, but we will have people who lose their housing and are suddenly stuck on the street and have to cope.  So rather than keep looking at band-aids, and, you know, because we're coming home later now we'll finalize this policy about the time when we're starting to look for winter shelter. There's got to be a better way. Yeah, so I guess for that one too, is there any, do you see a role for CJAC in those conversations, I suppose? Not at present, but that doesn't mean going forward, because I think CJAC wants to see everybody treated humanely, for lack of a better phrase, regardless of socio-economic status, ethnicity, etc. So, quite possibly, I was heartened to see what the police are doing as far as outreach, because outreach is really tremendously important. So, and social work. I think for me, you know, in considering all of this, there's, it's the public perception of what, you know, who the people are that are out there that, I think there needs to be public education about what the realities are around who the folks are that are out there, and there are people who choose to not go to shelter. You know, it is by choice that they can't, there are definitely people who choose to do that, and, you know, for their own reasons.  So I think the education piece may be something, you know, like is what came to mind for me while we were having this conversation is I don't know if anybody is aware of the neighbor keepers model that was developed by Hal Colston, which is a way. It's basically an anti poverty model to break down, like the barriers between people who have and those who don't have, you know, so it's, it's really intentional, it's intentional relationship building and it really is meant to break down classism. It just makes me think about that like how do we get out of our own bubble and and really embrace the people who are in a different place than we are. So, again, what it comes down to for me is like how do we have that cultural shift by educating the public. I think it's important because we all jump to a conclusion as to what those people are like, where they're coming from, and it's because of the house that's got the housing committee to because of the housing situation. It's just not available, so that if you lose your housing under any circumstances, look at front page forum. Getting housed in this area is very difficult under any circumstance, and then if you have any marks against you then it's even more difficult. And so it can happen across any socioeconomic lines. It tends to be more prevalent, I'm sure in some but you know I look at different grace of God go I kind of thing that some people are just one paycheck away. So yes, education is important to show the diversity of the on house community. And then as you point out there's some people who don't want to be but they're some people who simply can't be housed because they don't behave well. And that's another category of people that need to be worked with a different way. And the good news that I found was that the model in recent years has been quote to meet people where they're at. So Washington County Mental Health seems to be do pretty good job of knowing where certain people are at and working with them in an appropriate way. Anyway, so it's. Sorry. I thought you were done I apologize now. I was just gonna say like I think so like maybe the call here is for us all to you know be replying to folks individually is parking conversation having like sharing resources sharing information. And I like didn't hear about that one so I'm going to look up that the neighbor, neighbor keepers model and things like that and so I've just continuing to like intentionally have these conversations with with our neighbors and stuff and you know we'll on from which for him or elsewhere settle. Like as as the kind of immediate next step here is that am I capturing that right. I want to have a conversation with me and we can just schedule that too because I used to do some work around that model and was trained. Yeah, yeah, I was like literally look it up first. Don't know the words. Awesome. Okay. I'm Shayna. Lauren one of the. Yeah, just one other. I mean, I don't think it would be immediate term but I mean it does raise for me like. Is there a more like partnership role. So, you know, I think we got a lot of really good feedback of the meeting where we pulled together the leads of all the city committees, and now my failure alive has reached out and I know that I think it was the planning commission had said that they wanted to work with see Jack like, I guess, you know when we're looking at like our work plan for the next year as part of that like.  There's the informal work we can do that you laid out, but is there a more formal like, I mean, this is almost to me like a better word like interesting like case study as a community like, okay, we face. I think a lot of people who I heard from, for example, as a counselor, who I think would like deeply believe in like the mission of our committee had some very like knee jerk like, I don't want people like I like to use the park and I don't want people camping in the park where I have to see them. And like, how do we have those conversations and is there a. Is there a more like formal like, you know, a series of educational forums or I don't know what it might be but anyway I just wanted to like is there is there a more formal in addition to the informal but like where we might partner with the task force on something like that. Just saying that idea for another date and maybe like when it's not like still an active conversation of the policy, but more like what did we learn from this as a community and how do we address these issues moving forward. That's the only way to think about it. And the other thing I just wanted to flag was, there is also, and I know you and I had talked about this very briefly Shayna but with the American rescue plan act money coming into the city. The council, you know, most of that is just going to fill needs that were left aside because we lost a bunch of revenue as a community. But council did say that, you know, for addressing kind of urgent community needs that arose because of COVID that some portion of the money should go to do that to helping people and and it's very unclear like what that might go to.  So that could be something that we as a committee so there's like the recommendations coming out of the creative discourse, but maybe there's a broader lens to you know I'm just thinking of the Carol and raise the hygiene facilities and I know that two of you are on the party committee, whatever it's called, but you know are there other even like is there a shorter term if we're going to build a permanent facility, shorter term things that we can do, like helping acute needs that people in our community have right now so there's there's a little bit of money. And so if we want to roll in helping shape that I think the jet could also be thinking about that. Thanks Lauren. Like if anyone had any responses but also we're all still here we heard you on your phone. You can see us nodding. Okay, so, okay, so just to kind of recap here. I'm and I are going to connect with Montpelier alive telling Jeremy and I are going to write something as members of CJAC and responsible police review committee. We've got the meeting tonight where we're going to show up and you know support what's what's being happened. Michael's going to continue working on the website updates with his folks and working with Cameron on getting the budget for that. We're going to, you know, continuing like the individualized outreach and then for our meeting our next meeting, thinking more about what it like continue to check in on the follow up from the CJAC meeting the follow up from the Montpelier review committee meetings or conversations and then also of like following up with. Oh, sorry, following up with the planning commission was also up there. I have not heard back from them for a while. And then of having some of these continuing to have these conversations about how will we proactively engage in some of these conversations so the ideas of you know internal forums almost a task force bathrooms like kind of soliciting the kind of urgent needs and requests of our community as well as doing kind of that base building. And kind of built building the base of like the information for our community. At our next meeting, is my capturing that all. I know I did not capture those in cohesive and thoughtful words but like capturing the ideas. I'm not sure if Michael you're muted, but I think you're just saying. Yeah. Just that if you if you have taken written notes would you send them along to me and I'll sort of see how to incorporate them into the minutes. Cool. Um, all right. And so then our next meeting kind of been splitting between doing meetings every two weeks and every month. And a month from. Now is Yom Kippur. So I don't want to do a month, but we could do. We could do September 1, which is two weeks from now. What, yeah, what do folks think or we could do, you know, three weeks from now September 8. Okay. So we have a couple of others. Palin. Can we have it in three weeks? I think two weeks seems a little bit short with all the items you listed and complete them. Yes. So September 8 from 830 to 10. It's okay. Cool. Mary, can you send that out? Or set that, set that zoom up and stuff. Cool. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll see you again in. Like eight hours at the city council meeting. And then see you again in a couple of weeks. I think that's it. Awesome. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thanks everyone. Bye.


Okay, hello everyone. Next up we have Goffi Frux who's be talking about issues with large deployments of Debian Hello, thanks for joining in this session. It is meant more than a experience exchange instead of Talk to where just I speak So I just want to first introduce you to What issues we are facing in our environment? I will tracking this stuff in this document LSD stands for large scale deployments in case you wonder So please join the Goffi session. I will go through it Quickly I'm working for the Austrian e-Health system we are running the The electronic health system health care system in Austria The boxes at the doctors all are running Debian There are around 12,000 boxes all across the country and we do software updates twice a year And to be able to have the same Version across all the systems we need to have them updated in the during one night Also because of the health care system is a quite critical system So it has to be done All at the same time and quickly so that people Can go to the doctors the next morning without any troubles If Something in this environment goes wrong it might be a big case because you can't send out technicians to To check on 12,000 boxes across across the country and There's a fair amount of countermeasures that we've taken to work against these issues One of them the most important for us is the rescue system. There's a special partition on the boxes Which is read only which resets to a known good state. It's Technically it downloads a bootstrap binary Runs it and on top of that Starts to do the software update again This rescue system can be triggered manually, but it is also triggered automatically if the system Reboots 10 times without bringing up the application We have integration test which does just overall test looking if the system is still accessible through the Interfaces which are exported to software developers that can base the software on our software stack for for the system and Also Plugging in a monitor and keyboard directly into the box or using the web interface To work with the system and all this is done with the integration test Then there's the second step the system test which does the Tests on application layer which checks the different applications that works on the system and We have actually in our software development we do three revisions During the release cycle All the deeper changes are meant to be in the first step Then the system goes to integration test and system test and they test it There's another revision that is done Which only is allowed to contain minor changes and bug fixes There's a last revision only for bug fixes and Potentially also documentation changes and things like that Then when the rollout comes we first do the upgrade on the servers with respect to database changes required ones There is a first rollout to about 300 clients with which we have the first field test and check if there are any issues that we weren't able to reproduce in our local test environments and a week after that usually there is the rest of world rollout which Runs the update for older systems across the country. Of course, there's proxy proxies involved or caching servers to Work against bandwidth issues When you do updates for so many boxes in one night you have to work against these So this is our personal environment The software update is its own package. It usually runs an update update then It triggers an updated sources list or which has the new version name in it Does the update Fetches the packages or there is a two-step software update going on the first step just updates or Specific software update packages Which also has some pre and post processing hooks where we can Check our work around certain limitations with respect to Config files and something like that The configuration files from the packages usually are shipped in one of our internal packages We don't touch the devian packages that much, but we have All the packages are installed with force conf missing force comf new and this the package hooks That we know the system out there has the new configuration because it all has to work unattended of course and After the software stack got updated. There's also a hook that might need to reboot the system and then after reboots there's The software update hooks in again and updates all the remaining packages and in the end brings up the application layer again So this is how things work for us And I wonder if there are people who might have Stumbled into similar issues have more or less similar big deployments going on and What problems others are facing in such environments? Maybe first The first round of question if there are any question with respect to our specific setup and Yes, my my Hey Hello, one two three my first question is which kind of boxes are these are these the desktops at the doctors or are these some small servers that are used Okay Yes, I should go into a bit more details. They are Sort of embedded devices There are no movable parts on it. They are directly in the doctor's office or in a hospital and in this environment environment various special limitations regulations with respect to Emissions what The boxes might are allowed to take with respect to power and Things like that there Embedded small devices and Running the application stack for for the health system so when the doctor puts in your health card it checks the authorization and Then the doctor can put in the consultation information for for the case when For which you are there So it's not desktop systems in that case it's just exports more or less a web interface in which you can put in the patient data and For payment Through that the doctor gets paid by the health care insurance company So Exactly, how do you trigger the installation of the update package? There's the We do run our each of our releases has its own version code and In we have a software distribution server which can tell the clients which version they should update to and This software distribution tells the server that all the clients there is a new version out there There's a cron job running Every day on the clients which checks if there might be a new version available and there's a maintenance window in Between which the clients might hook in the updates So the central server sets the new version for the clients In in the evening the clients see there's a new version and they trigger the update on Within their respective maintenance window There's also for for some areas that might be Especially for for bigger environments like hospitals They have the the possibility of manually triggering the update So it's not automatically done in the night Especially with respect to emergency rooms and things like that They need to be able to trigger it on themself and not having done in the night for the usually practices and Is it means that there is no user data on these devices? On these devices the question was if there is data on these devices or user-generated data on To some degree. Yes The boxes are also meant to be able to work in offline mode So if the central servers are not reachable the doctor practices Need to be able to do their job nevertheless. So the systems can store data Offline and when they get the network connection again this data will be sent to the central servers So any Any more question with respect to our special environment or So how are these boxes connected wire Virtual private network and is the bandwidth limited so on the client side Yes, most of these parts are already covered in my talk on the debian day They are connected either via least lines or regular DSL lines The providers are required to run a MPLS service on it for quality assurance There's a minimum bandwidth which has to be ensured to be able to Run the update in a timely manner because this will also get tricky if the boxes just a Few hundred bytes per second and the update is a bit some sometimes a bit bigger So we really try to get the update limited quite low Yes, what I didn't mention here what might be needed together and it is we strip the debian packages from their documentation and Help pages and all this stuff manual pages so that the packages are really narrowed down to The minimum that is really required on the boxes There's no documentation stored on the boxes because the old boxes that we are currently in the In in the work of replacing them the old boxes just had 256 megabytes of RAM and the same amount of flash memory so it's quite limited in that area and That's it's not only the bandwidth reason why we We strip off the debian packages from the documentation, but also the space limitations on the embedded devices The question was if we encounter problems with the network Yes and no The group of all the 12,000 Boxes when when doing the rest of world rollout We usually group them in several chunks with about 2003,000 boxes a chunk and trigger them at different hours over the night so That the servers Don't stumble into the bandwidth limit. We also do Some sort of simulation graphing beforehand to be able to know where there might be the bigger peaks or things like that and afterwards the real data also gets Gets written down noted down and checked if our pre-calculations if our Tests where more like more or less within the lines and that we be able to potentially improve these limitations but so far at least within the last few releases we managed to get things really nicely lined out My real question is are there any other people around here that might have That many boxes or even just thousand or something like that under their hands Well Two or three releases ago. We did the upgrade from Sarge to Lenny If you know about the history there was the edge release in between So we skipped the edge release. We directly went from Sarge to Lenny and This also took a lot of testing during the process because there were some symbols removed and The upgrade path within Devian is ensured only for one release at a time so we had some issues with that, but it was overdue and we do We do the system upgrades that the complete distribution upgrades for the base system most of the time Now that we have Lenny on the boxes contain only of improvements in in the whole process or adding new applications and Bundles along that lines which Offer better supports for for specific application enhancements like recently there was added e-medication which checks for Interactions between different medication types and be able to present them to the doctor so they can Warn you about interactions of different medications and tell you about them Yes, Neil a question from IRC How do you cope with? Bandwidth requirements do the clients have some sort of randomization for the time to start downloading the updates Well within the maintenance window, so they don't try and download all the same time. I think I read that question up myself How do you cope with bandwidth requirements? Yes, there is some randomization for the time started within the parts Like said we split them into several chunks. So they are split out out over the night But within that there's also some randomization for which goes over about I think 10 minutes within Which the different clients can start sometimes the clients that run into timeouts during the updates giving Giving some travels, but the rescue system is Dare to even help with those because when the application doesn't start up within a certain time There hooks the walk. There's a watchdog that checks for the application start and if it didn't start for a certain time the system reboots on itself and Most of the times the systems are able to heal themselves through these reboots and Because other systems are not updating anymore at that time. So that works fairly well for us most of the times there with 12,000 boxes They're fairly The same hardware wise, but there are still some different charges that were done while production so in our last release we had a timing issue with with the thing and a new kernel update and the watchdog hooked in too early and some of the boxes were in an endless loop here and We had to fix that but These are just some corner cases and gladly they don't appear very rarely Yes, how do you fix these issues? So when when some of the boxes have trouble like an endless loop or Where the update simply fails? Do you have access remote access to them or do you have to? Basically go there Our operations team has SSH access to all of the boxes When we are not able to SSH into them anymore That's the troublesome part But when we at least be able to SSH to them we can log in and fix stuff That's the easy part even though sometimes Things are still pretty tricky because the system is extremely complex over when it became fairly complex over time Most of the times SSH access is possible Sometimes in that case with the kernel we had to go into the client Distribution system and tell them to upgrade to Deploy an older version and not their most recent version and Then they went through the rescue system to the older version and we were able to reach it Sometimes it's really Hardware plain hardware breakages the old hardware is about five years or maybe even older and it starts to wear out so We currently are replacing the hardware nevertheless and in case some of the boxes Go mad with respect to hardware technicians have to go there and replace it Neil at Far back Do you see issues with the base system getting larger? Is this a problem for you? Pardon Is this a problem for you when the base system gets larger between releases? Yes And no because actually now we're in the area of Deploying new hardware. So the issue isn't there anymore. We go from 256 megabytes to four gigabytes of hard disk space. So that gives us a bit space for future Deployments, but on the other hand Making it bigger Becomes more troublesome for for the servers for the upgrade process the download times don't scale up in that Scale up that much. So we still have to be very careful with how much software we put out there and Sometimes we even have to make decisions like is this bug really that important that we push out an update? Or is it easier to work around it? But yeah, these are decisions that has to be made in such an environment Is there no one here who has also a big server farm or something like that under their hands? Yes, Neil well at Where we work when it's not Debian based, but we do have a lot of the similar problems for company go about we I work for a Set top box manufacturing company. We have a product at telecom Italia server currently about 60 70,000 boxes And that there's a lot of very similar problems with making sure things stay up to date One of the ones that we had to do was one of the requirements was making sure that the hardware can't brick itself at any point in time And so there's a sort of a hardware recovery thing What sort of mechanism do you do for the updates? Is it just HTTP? Do you have a separate kernel that that that loads this software or how do you make sure that that you don't? Uh, that a bug that isn't going to take the entire box down Well, like I mentioned, there's a lot of quality assurance system test integration test going on test rollout of the 300 golden clients and the rest of world You never can ensure you can take a lot of precautions Be very careful double triple check There's this free revisions that we do internally before we so we push out the software for the first time and All these Things that roll during the release cycle made us at least Gave us the possibilities to go to bed and be able to sleep So Yeah, the the possibility of breaking systems, especially when you have to do kernel related updates is rather high like I mentioned formerly that the issue with the Kernel timing issue was was a bit troublesome, but we managed that very gladly very good and Yeah, does that cover your question properly to some degree? So if there's no, uh, yes, Kristen So this is not really related to The boxes you are upgrading here, but still somehow related. Are you actually upgrading the card reader firmware too? Or just the box? No, the card reader firmware also gets upgraded from time to time Especially recently we had to upgrade the certificates we were using they were running out and In that process there is also A card reader related upgrades going a firmware upgrades going on. Yes Is this are these upgrades triggered by the box or they are triggered through the box? Yes Because sometimes the card readers are in their special VPN environment locally and we can't reach them from external and There's also some card reader proxy for for bigger environments where they have like in a hospital you Usually have At every desk there are a card reader But you have only a few Main systems that are the access to the healthcare system VPN so That's done from there One more question on IC. Let me check it up Which one was that? Yes Deploy updates Selectively to specific clients for example if some of them need a slightly different package or configuration Can you explain how you do it? well No, there's no Software difference between the clients There's configuration related to different clients we have one main configuration file Which stores specific tuning parameters for for a software stack? but The packages that we deploy are all the same across the different clients There are different not not every client has that the same set of applications So the sources list line that is sent by the server Contained different components at the end for the different clients and these components guide which application the specific doctor is Allowed to use and or rather is able to use because the other applications are not uploaded to the system But apart from that Yeah, it's done through the components in the sources list file that different software stack we might be Able to work on that system more currently it's just used for the applications that The doctors can use on the system. So hopefully Yes Neil, how do you make sure that the software on the device is what you put there? Do you verify the kernels or check the file system or or how do you sort of really verify? There hasn't been tampered with in any way well The local administrators Might have they only have access to a specific dialogue-based administration menu menu through which they can change Just a very limited set of settings like network settings or which card readers are connected to the device But apart from that no one Locally has access to the system About being tampered with we do rely on Uptkey just like regular DVM parts so There's no additional layer that we put on top of that We can remotely log in and check things there's also some sort of We have a specific software that is able to do some checks on on on the whole tree of Clients if we need to find out whether How much bandwidth was used in the last update from the clients we can Hook in some scripts that get uploaded to the systems and give us this data Which might be used it's sort called health check to to be able to check The health of the system. There's no regular Rd tool or something like that running on the boxes but if we need the some some specific information for Whether they might be had been some problems with the last software update or that we can extract the logs and and check them so the next Talk that is going here more or less goes in the same direction and I hope there will be more people around that's work in different in similar environments and also have bigger amounts of machines under their hands and speak up about the issues they are facing so If you know someone who works in such environment, please tell them to get in contact with me. I would like to discuss troubles they are seeing with using Debian in such environments and In case Yeah, please get in contact with me. I Hope you all know how to do that So Thanks for being here. Thanks for your questions. I hope I have answered all your curiosities and See you later