Staff Training Lab 1 - Welcome to the OCF!

Facilitator: Ben Cuan

7 min read

Introduction
Task 1: Getting Started
Task 2: Slide into our DM’s
Task 3: Sign up for committees and projects
Conclusion

Introduction

ocf waddles

Welcome to OCF staff!

These staff training activities are meant to help you get familiarized with the inner workings of the OCF, and feel comfortable contributing to the OCF yourself (whether that be technically, administratively, or both)! All new, veteran, and aspiring staffers are welcome to participate in as much or as little as desired throughout the semester, but we encourage you to come every week even if it’s just to hang out with us!

What will we do in these staff trainings?

The purpose of these training labs are to cover the most useful aspects of OCF infrastructure and organization that staffers actively contribute to or interact with on a day-to-day basis. This includes:

how to access and interact with important OCF services/servers like tsunami, supernova, puppet, webhosting, docs, ocf-web, HPC, etc.
an overview of OCF hardware, and how to request shiny new stuff on the buysheet
what committees are and how to get involved with them
the RT system, and how to run staff hours
common tools used in the OCF like Git, vim, and useful terminal commands
kubernetes, if interest and time allows
lots of excuses to meet other staffers and make new friends!

You do not need any prior experience in anything at all to participate. Concurrent enrollment in the OCF DeCal (either beginner or advanced track is ok) is encouraged for new staff.

Getting Help

Even if you’re feeling the slightest bit unsure about something, or if you’re curious and want to learn more, don’t hesitate to talk to other staff members! We’re usually in the lab after-hours (around 8-10pm most days), or during scheduled staff hours. If you can’t make it to the lab during these times, feel free to post to the following Discord/Slack channels:

#rebuild: technical and infrastructure-related discussion
#administrivia: administrative discussion
#decal-comm: discussion specific to decal and staff training content

Who to Talk To

If you want to ask someone about something, or just want to say hi, feel free to ping a veteran staff member on Discord, Slack, or Matrix! We welcome any and all questions about the OCF- as long as you’re interested in doing something, we’re happy to help you get started on it.

An updated list of officers (*M’s and committee heads) can be found on the website at https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/docs/about/officers/. Below is a list of the positions and what each position is responsible for:

General Managers (GMs): oversee the administrative side of the OCF, including BoD meetings. Ask them about hosting staff hours, contributing non-technically, and joining the Board of Directors!
Site Managers (SMs): oversee the technical side of the OCF, including the lab space. Ask them about OCF infrastructure, technical projects, and upcoming lab upgrades!
Operations Managers (OMs): oversee the OCF’s operations staff (opstaff), who run the front desk and many other lab operations, including technical and design projects.
Internal Committee (#internal-comm): manages staff events, socials, and meetings.
External Committee (#external-comm): manages industry, alumni, and club relations.
Finance Committee (#finance-comm): manages the OCF budget, purchases, and funding from ABSA, STF, and other sources.
DeCal Committee (#decal-comm): runs the Decal and staff workshops.

Optional Gradescope Course

If you want a place to be able to store your answers for future reference, you’re welcome to enroll in the complementary Gradescope course for staff training. Use the code 4VW28D to join from the Gradescope dashboard (click “Enroll in Course” at the bottom right).

Task 1: Getting Started

If this is your first time at a staff meeting, we’ll need to add you to staff so that you can access resources for contributing!

Before proceeding, make sure you have an OCF account (ocf.io/join). This is different from your CalNet account.

Once you have an OCF account, talk to someone with root access (such as the SM’s or GM’s) who will be able to add you to the staff role.

To verify that you have been added successfully, log in to any OCF desktop using your OCF account credentials. Then, open up a terminal (using ctrl+alt+T or by clicking the icon on the taskbar) and type in ssh supernova. It should look something like this:

ocf supernova

You can access supernova at any time on other machines (including your own) by typing in ssh <YOUR_USERNAME>@supernova.ocf.io on your terminal. If prompted for a password, it’s ok if nothing shows up when you type- just hit enter after typing in your password and it will go through.

We’ll explore what ssh actually does, as well as some cool things you can do on supernova, in next week’s staff training!

Extra Credit: Navigate to our staff documentation. What command did we run to add you to staff?

Task 2: Slide into our DM’s

Outside of the lab, most of our communication happens over the OCF chat network, which consists of Discord, Slack, IRC, and Matrix. All of these are bridged, meaning that sending a message in one platform sends it to all of the other platforms too, so pick your favorite one and click on its link to join!

Most staff are currently active on Discord, so if you don’t have any prior preferences then we recommend you join it so you can reach other staff more easily through DM’s.

Discord Instructions

If you’re joining on Discord, you must first verify your account (instructions on the #verify channel).

Once you’re verified, send a message to the #introduce-yourself channel so we can get to know you a little better! Once you do so, you’ll receive the newstaff and ocf roles.

You should then be able to add yourself to whatever topic-specific roles you desire (such as for committees or groups), so you can get pinged for any action happening in those areas. It’s also recommended to turn notifications on for any channels of interest, as committees/groups usually have their own meeting times outside of general meetings that you won’t want to miss.

Slack Instructions

If you’re joining Slack, you will need to create an account using your OCF account email (username@ocf.berkeley.edu). The confirmation email should then be forwarded to your berkeley.edu email address.

Once you join, you’ll need to manually add the channels you’re interested in. A good way to do so is click the “+” button when hovering over Channels, then sort by most members and go down the list from there.

Matrix Instructions

Our Matrix Synapse instance can be found at matrix.ocf.io. We also have an Element client hosted at chat.ocf.io so you can connect online if you don’t have your own client. Log in using your OCF account.

IRC

If you want to use IRC, we have an instance at irc.ocf.io. Ask on #rebuild if you need help getting set up.

The OCF, as the name suggests, is completely open to anyone who wants to join staff! Even if you’re brand new to staff, we invite you to join any of our committees or technical projects. Go here and put your username on as many slots as you want.

Task: Go to the channel of the group you’re most interested in joining (on Discord/Slack/IRC/Matrix), and send a brief message introducing yourself and expressing your interest to join!

Conclusion

That’s about it for this week! This is the first time we’re trying these staff training activities, so if you ever have any feedback or ideas on how to improve them, please create an issue or make a PR to decal-web! The source files can be found in the labs folder and start with the ‘s’ prefix.