Hello, I would like to request a DSA VM to host a debug-me server, "debug-me.debian.org". === What is debug-me? === debug-me lets the developer of a piece of software run commands on the machines of users of their software. This makes it possible to debug problems much faster. Instead of explaining to your user what an architecture is, run `uname -a` on their machine. A debug-me server acts as an intermediary between the developer and the user's computer. The developer must PGP-sign all commands to be run. The server collects these in a log, and e-mails this to the user. So if the developer did anything nasty, there is cryptographic proof that can be published on the Internet. There is also a chat window. The developer could use this to ask whether there is confidential data in a file they want to use for a test command, for example. One reason why users are able to sufficiently trust developers to install new releases of their software is because if there is malicious code in the new release, that developer's reputation would be damaged. debug-me extends that mechanism to running commands on the user's computer. There are some nice screencasts: https://debug-me.branchable.com/ debug-me is currently in NEW. === Why should Debian run a server? === debug-me is likely to be very useful for debugging distribution problems, in addition to bugs in upstream code. Users trust DDs to push new versions of packages to their machines; we can use debug-me to extend this trust to debugging problems with those packages. This makes Debian development more fun and more efficient. === What resources would such a server need? === Less than 50MiB of disc space (debug-me can be configured to store logs, but by default it deletes them once they've been e-mailed out). A few KiB of memory per connection to the server. Minimal processing power. In short, a very small VM would suffice, until/unless debug-me usage becomes very widespread without a comparable increase in the number of active servers. === Who would run such a server? === I can administer the debug-me server. I maintain the debug-me package in Debian. -- Sean Whitton
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