On Wed, Sep 21, 2005 at 09:25:08PM +0100, Graeme A Stewart wrote:
> Alessandra Forti wrote:
> >Hi Graeme,
> >
> >I think that Andrew model is slightly simpler. Basically he is proposing
> >a box were users can run their own cgi scripts as pool accounts, which
> >is quite attractive for small things users might want to do, but I'm not
> >sure how it would work if the experiments want to run databases or
> >daemons like xrootd and they do want to do that.
>
> Let's make a clear distinction between general high performance
> components and service "extras". What I was proposing as a VO box does
> low volume service extras. However, look at what Atlas want from a VO box:
>
> https://uimon.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/Atlas/DDMSc3#DDM_requirements_for_VO_site_box
>
> and you'll see that it's pretty much that: a claims service running over
> http(s) with a mysql backend and various other completely standard grid
> tools (including gridsite!). OK, Altas say "No site admin intervention
> should be required to upgrade versions of components". However, if they
> make a meta-rpm and sites run "apt-get update" then Atlas will be in
> control of the package versions.
Unless there is some coordination by every VO don't expect that you'll be
able to mix rpm repositories from all of them in the same VOBOX. How long
do you think it will take to get conflicting versions of MySQL/http/perl/whatever?
They will step on each others toes (or ours) very fast i am afraid.
Also running apt-get update for the VO specific repository is equivalent
to giving root access to them. How long do you think it will take for a VO
to write an rpm that will reconfigure the http server for example because
they wanted to change something and couldn't be bothered to contact all
the sites?
I would be much happier if all VO specific software was provided by an
LCG repository and each VO had to argue that it realy needs package X
and that it does provide some functionality not available in the middleware.
This way will know what is lacking in the middleware (so we can fix it) and
we will have some control over what gets installed in a VOBOX instead of
letting each VO running wild on their own and ignoring the middleware.
Kostas Georgiou
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