Operations/Minutes/2026-05-28

OpenStreetMap Foundation, Operations Meeting - Draft minutes

These minutes do not go through a formal acceptance process.
This is not strictly an Operations Working Group (OWG) meeting.

Thursday 28 May 2026, 19:00 London time
Location: Video room at https://osmvideo.cloud68.co

Participants

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi, including some notes from Grant.

New action items from this meeting

Minh to follow up on Data Working Group (DWG) non-disclosure agreements, then IP access for moderators in website repo. [Topic: DWG request for user info for moderators]
OPS to ask OSM France how do they view if we retire the HOT style from osm.org since it is not under active development. [AOB topic: TracesTrack topo and HOT layers]
Ops to upgrade Naga. [AOB topic: OS upgrades]

Reportage

Referer policy header

Related to action item: 2026-05-14 Paul to do PR setting referer policy header on export

The embed page which people use on their websites is in Rails. Rails generates a cached version of the page on first access per instance, and Apache then serves that cached version in preference to calling Rails in the future. Each time the site is deployed, the cached version is cleared, so at the next request, it gets regenerated. Therefore, we can't have dynamically generated headers.

Triggers for large downloads from QGIS

Related to action item: 2026-03-19 Grant to research what triggers a large download from QGIS. [Topic: QGIS Tiles usage] # 2026-05-14 Not much progress; unable to find the new usage header in latest versions.

Grant could not find the header data.
Paul was able to see the headers in the very two latest versions, so not many people have them.

Andy Townsend's "OSMF Shortbread" style

Suggestion by Paul to change from VersaTiles colorful to SomeoneElse's (Andy Townsend's) style. Currently, VersaTiles colorful is only served to OpenStreetMap.org and to the OSM wiki.

Plan

The VersaTiles colorful style will not be immediately removed, as it is useful to retain a page showing multiple styles on the vector tile server for debugging purposes.
Fonts: switching to client-side fonts, likely using the same font size as OSM Carto.
As the existing URL contains "colorful" there won't be an in-place replacement on the existing file.
The OSM wiki's map gadget will need to be updated.

Andy Townsend's style

shows more detail when zoomed in, which was the point.
is closer to the standard style, OSM Carto.
Font size seems large

Action item

OPS to contact OSM-FR and mention that we are considering dropping the HOT style as it is not under active development.

DWG request for user info for moderators

Suggestion: Make some information about OSM user accounts available to DWG members.

Pablo forwarded a request from Frederik Ramm (Data Working Group (DWG) volunteer). The DWG, in order to detect casual OSM sock puppet accounts, routinely asks for account information from Tom. This is because the DWG members do not have direct access to IP addresses of mappers, browser logs, or other user data. As the DWG considers this to be a lot of work for Tom, they have suggested making some information about users available to moderators. They are willing to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Typical DWG questions to OPS

Whether something is linking two accounts.
Whether they appear to be any other related accounts.

Current searching functionality

OSM.org administrators have access to IP address, email address and spam score, shown on a user's page.
The OWG uses a page where you can put in a subnet and it will show you all the accounts created from that subnet. You can also search by email address or name. You can't search for all accounts created from an email domain - and many use providers like Gmail. It is rarely useful for the serious ones, because they use Tor or VPNs to hide their IPs.

MediaWiki

It is impossible to search for an email address through the user interface - you have to go to the database.
The Check User MediaWiki extension lets you see IPs and all the actions by Check User are logged.

On non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)

The DWG members might not have signed an NDA.
Tom did not sign an NDA until 9 months ago.

On technical aspects

DWG does not seem to be asking for feature development, but access to functionality that already exists.
A change to the osm.org site will be required.
OPS will have to decide whether to make the change unilaterally or configurable.
The issue will be tracked as a website issue.
It would be useful to have an audit log for oversight, but it would be more work.

Other points mentioned during discussion

Legal sign-off will be needed.
DWG group is not as coherent as this group.

On Discourse accounts identified as spam

Grant deals with the reported spam accounts.
Reports are actioned.
There are some people reporting OSM accounts mentioning that they have spammed community.osm.org, but don't provide links. Most such reports come from moderators.
- In some cases the email address is used as the key.
- The OWG typically does not act on such reports.

Action item

Minh to follow up on DWG NDAs, then IP access for moderators in website repository.

GPS traces update

Tom floated idea of converting 2 existing replication servers to serve new DB (primary & secondary).
One already in Amsterdam, other would need to move from Dublin

Steps needed

To persuade Andy that it's a good idea.
Test on the dev server.
Test a copy of the full database.
- We don't have the space.

On database servers

Current status
5 DB servers, three current generation and two older, which are mirrors of the main database. One is master and one is slave, and one is located in Amsterdam and the other in Slough.

Options for deployment

get new servers for the GPS database
take Eddie (Supermicro SYS-2028U-TN24R4T+, Ubuntu 22.04) and Karm (Supermicro SYS-2028U-TN24R4T+, Ubuntu 22.04) (old servers) out of the current cluster and use them as GPS database servers, resulting to three main database servers and two GPS database servers.
Avoid the copying step: The old servers have a full copy of the database. We could potentially run some scripts and reduce the data down just to the GPS points table. Thus, the migration will be much quicker, as no data will move. We should still need to shut off GPS uploads, but it will be for a few hours rather than days.
- It might be a bit tricky to work with the contents of the schema versions table when one is using multiple databases in Rails. There might also be some identifiers that could potentially conflict.

Suggestions

Take a full downtime for at least part of the deployment.
Budget for another server.
- No, preference to move the Slough server to Dublin.

On visibility of GPS traces

Proposal by Rubén to only use trackable and identifiable. Suggestion to first stop users uploading public and private GPS traces,and provide them option only for trackable and identifiable. Then allow users to migrate their own traces or keep them as legacy.
- There is no OPS component to this topic. The suggestions are related to osm.org changes and to the Licensing Working Group (LWG).
- At some point a decision will have to be made on dealing with old public and private traces. Could turn public traces to trackable.
  - This will be discussed outside of OPS.

Any other business

OSUOSL server Stormfly-04

Sarah Hoffmann (Nominatim) asked whether we want to keep the Stormfly-04 server (Nominatim geocoding server), which is at the Open Source Lab of the Oregon State University. She has upgraded it to the newest Nominatim release and has an open ticket.

HP ProLiant DL360 Gen9 with 2.6 terabytes.
It is SSD-based, and reasonably fast, but not fast enough for Nominatim and could not be used as a tile server.
It potentially may start costing us money, once OSU starts billing us for space.

Grant's Dublin visit

Grant plans to go to Dublin and has started collecting spares such as replacement RAM. Will need to collect old hardware and cables.

Preference on using the ferry.
Not urgent.

TracesTrack Topo and HOT layers

Background: TracesTrack Topo and HOT are currently featured layers on osm.org.

HOT layer
The repository for the style has been archived over a year ago. Not really developed for a long time. The style is still running and used on the HOT tasking manager. HOT is not funding its development or hosting it.

The HOT layer is hosted by OSM France, who are constrained on hardware and have been asking for donations. Have loose association with HOT.
Could ask OSM France their plans, now that the style is archived.
Featured layers are typically maintained.

Suggestions

Ask OSM France how do they view if we retire the HOT style from osm.org since it is not under active development, instead of asking if they can create a repo or put in more effort to maintain it.
Look at Matomo stats for the layer. Last weeks stats: HOT layer 33.800 conversions, similar numbers for OpenMapTiles, Transport Map had 48,000.

Featured layers

We don't require an open source repository for featured layers (e.g. Thunderforest).
There is a place to provide feedback.
Layers are being maintained.
One of the factors into the evaluation of a layer as a potential featured layer on osm.org is being open source.

Action item

Ask OSM France how do they view if we retire the HOT style from osm.org since it is not under active development.

Credativ consultancy on OSM.org Postgres database update

Topic added by Minh.

Credativ had an idea about using columnar storage for the large tables and suggested using Timescale.

Columnar databases

Are optimised for retrieval.
They tend to be more expensive to do writes.
Are good if you are selecting on one or two columns, and you don't have good indexes. Not for our case.

Most of the time we need most of the columns.

Other points mentioned during discussion

We had interactions with Timescale before.
Paul has talked to both TimescaleDB and pgBackrest people last week in person.
Tom has wrote a columnar database at work.

Decision

Columnar storage is probably not appropriate because it’s read-optimized.

OS upgrades

Topic added by Grant.

Tom spent some time on MediaWiki's compatibility page trying to work out what versions support the PHP version in Debian 13, but the page was self-contradictory. As the new version of MediaWiki in June is supposed to support it, we just have to wait.

Shenron

Mailing list needs to be done.

Ridley

Has CiviCRM.
Has old State of the Map sites.
Has the OSM blog.
Unclear if the board and DWG wikis are there.

Naga

Subversion redirector, Trac redirector, IRC redirector, Blog aggregator, OSQA server for help.openstreetmap.org
Can be updated.
OTRS (Znuny) is running on the host and now uses the Debian package.

On CiviCRM

Has 10 3rd party plugins, some no longer supported. There is a list in the Chef attributes file for the CiviCRM cookbook.
It is unclear what some of the plugins do, as Guillaume Rischard (former board member) had stopped looking after CiviCRM. Guillaume had root access when it was being redeveloped.
Last time we had turned some off to see if anything breaks. Michael Spreng (Membership Working Group volunteer) had helped.
The issue is figuring out what PHP versions CiviCRM is happy with.
Upgrading requires time and sustained effort.
CiviCRM extensions are different to WordPress extensions.
The WordPress version is tightly linked to the CiviCRM version that you use.
We had custom forked versions as well.

Suggestions

Put TagInfo on Stormfly-04, to have a spare general purpose machine in Amsterdam.
Move Ridley to Taluga.
- Lots of the stuff are supposed to go to Naga.

Action item

Ops to upgrade Naga.

Meeting recordings

Topic added by Dorothea.

Question whether the Ops meeting recordings, which are made for note-taking, can be provided to any of the participants of the calls who might ask for them.

> Yes, it is fine. The recordings cannot be provided to people outside of this group.

Ops plans for SotM2026

Suggestion to organise something at SotM.

Need to find a space.

Action items

2026-05-14 Grant to check with Fastly team via Slack about 100% ngwaf traffic
2026-05-14 Paul to do PR setting referer policy header on embed
~~2026-03-19 Paul to create a breakdown of QGIS tile traffic statistics for different zoom levels. [Topic: QGIS Tiles usage]~~
2026-03-19 Grant to research what triggers a large download from QGIS. [Topic: QGIS Tiles usage]
2026-03-19 Paul to overhaul how we're doing the 404 tiles. [Topic: QGIS Tiles usage]
2026-03-19 Paul to look into the typo on tile block message 403r [Topic: Typo on tile block message 403r?]
2026-03-19 Paul and Grant to run some time limited experiments during non peak hours to test catching anonymous/fake-ua scrapers. Genuine Google Bot etc will continue to be permitted. [Topic: Fastly Client Challenges] # 2026-05-14 Grant to chat to Tom about what CA + Signed Certs are required. Grant to read the AWS documentation on requirements.
2026-03-05 Grant to do a dry run for the Mailman conversion, probably on Rhaegal in Croatia. [Topic: Upgrades: Machines on Ubuntu 22.04]
~~2026-01-22 Tom to draft follow up question on pgbackrest local backup required or can /JUST/ S3 be used. [Topic: Credativ consultancy on OSM.org Postgres database update]~~
2025-10-16 Grant and Paul to set up a meeting about AWS Identity and Access Management Roles Anywhere https://docs.aws.amazon.com/rolesanywhere/latest/userguide/introduction.html. [Topic: AWS CA cert]
2025-10-16 Grant to create a PR regarding refactoring some stuff. [Topic: Reworking of Test Kitchen methods for defining which jobs run on Test Kitchen GitHub actions]
2025-10-16 Grant to create a PR about adding logic to Chef for retrying failed initial creation of Let's Encrypt certificates [Topic: Add logic to Chef for retrying failed initial creation of Let's Encrypt certificates]

Action items that have been stricken-through are completed, removed, or have been moved to GitHub tickets.