At ScotGrid we have been discussing which flavour/customization of
Scientific Linux should be used in future deployments.
I have examined various combinations of customization and install
options - the results of which I thought would be interesting to share
on this list.
cheers
Steve
------------------------------
Dr Steve Thorn
ScotGrid Systems Administrator
National e-Science Centre
15 South College Street
Edinburgh EH8 9AA
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)131 650 9815
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Scientific Linux flavours
=========================
I tried four installations. Three from CERN and one vanilla as follows:
Scientific Linux 3.0.3 CERN ISOs with three install options:
1 - CERN Recommended Setup
2 - Personal Desktop (no CERN customization chosen)
3 - Custom, minimal
Vanilla Scientific Linux 3.0.3 ISOs:
4 - Custom, minimal plus optional apt and removal of unnecessary RPMs
post-install (telnet, ftp, remaining kde and gnome RPMs, redhat-configs,
finger, infrared and isdn support...)
I was expecting to find no evidence of CERN components in 2 & 3, but
found some:
CERN component 1 2 3
--------------------------
sue Y N N
hepix Y N N
AFS Y N N
CERN kernel Y Y Y
APT Y Y Y
Quattor Y Y N
Note:
- the list of CERN components is not meant to be exhaustive.
- the CERN kernel is probably just labelled as such and doesn't differ
from vanilla SL.
I found it particularly amazing that the Personal Desktop install
without CERN customization installs elements of Quattor!
As expected install 4 has no (obvious) customization. I think there's
very little difference between 3 and 4 except for the removal of
unnecessary RPMs in 4 and kernel renaming.
User Interface installation
===========================
I used the User Interface (LCG 2.2.0) manual install to test the SL
flavours (this was done before the 2.3.0 release). Note that this
version has only been certified on Red Hat 7.3, but I expected some
functionality given deployment team feedback and especially if I could
install the RPMs without breaking dependencies. I tried two of the above
four flavours:
1 - SL CERN Recommended Setup
4 - SL Minimal with apt.
The install of RPMs on both was a little tricky with APT unable to
resolve dependencies without intervention. But both installed eventually
with no dependency broken. All UI functionality I tested worked with
both.
There is a curiosity with install 4 here. To resolve some dependencies
the SL CERN APT repository had to be added to pick up a few RPMs that
are not available from Fermilab. When an upgrade is subsequently
performed, APT treats CERN RPMs as newer than SL ones with the same
version number, presumably because of the CERN postfix. For example:
tcsh-6.12-4 -> tcsh-6.12-4.cern
this is somewhat annoying.
In addition, there are a number of CERN RPMs that have newer version
numbers than vanilla SL. Does this mean CERN are updating faster?
Summary
=======
It would seem that the flavour of Scientific Linux is not too important,
which is good. Our preference is to keep it as simple as possible and
use install 4 (I note that this agrees with the Generic LCG install
guides).
The minimal installs are probably missing a lot of functionality that
LCG users will want (for example, no compilers). With APT this can
easily be rectified so I don't consider it a problem. Is there
information on what users expect to find installed on the Worker Nodes?
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