Hi John,

I don't see the situation so dramatic the sites in question have been 
working up to now at least as far as lcc_utils is concerned. I haven't 
received any complain from the experiments, if I had I would have done 
something earlier. We will do something now.

The support of multiple copies is another question independent from the 
upgrade. If you look at it it could be the opposite: consider how poorly 
backward compatible the software is often - as in this case - the 
experiments might not want the latest version. The main reason multiple 
version is not a good solution is because experiments can copy clients 
in their areas, they have a finer control and they can deal with their 
users in much better way without involving sites.

cheers
alessandra

PS From Maarten email CERN itself is being "forced" to upgrade the SAM 
machines from SLC3/glite3.0.

Gordon, JC (John) wrote:
> Jeremy, the issue is not how old the release that these sites are running is but when it was superseded in the WLCG minimum release definition. Was that a year ago? If so then some GridPP sites have questions to answer. If not then it is a different discussion.
>
> Some experiments have been asking for more recent gfal and lcg-utils for a long time. There have been various suggestions at the GDB about how sites could support multiple releases. UK sites have been negative about them all and it looks like we are getting bit now. If sites are against multiple release support then surely there is a responsibility to keep reasonably up to date?
>
> John 
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Testbed Support for GridPP member institutes [mailto:TB-
>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Coles, J (Jeremy)
>> Sent: 21 July 2009 13:55
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: New DPM for SAM causes failures at many UKI sites
>>
>> Dear All
>>
>> I've been made aware of an issue that affects many UKI sites running
>> older versions of GFAL and lcg_utils. Specific sites in UKI that should
>> read the following carefully are:
>>
>> RAL-LCG2               lcgce02.gridpp.rl.ac.uk;
>> lcgce03.gridpp.rl.ac.uk; 			     lcgce04.gridpp.rl.ac.uk;
>> lcgce05.gridpp.rl.ac.uk
>> UKI-LT2-IC-HEP         ce00.hep.ph.ic.ac.uk
>> UKI-LT2-RHUL           ce1.pp.rhul.ac.uk
>> UKI-LT2-UCL-HEP        lcg-ce01.hep.ucl.ac.uk
>> UKI-NORTHGRID-MAN-HEP  ce01.tier2.hep.manchester.ac.uk
>> UKI-NORTHGRID-MAN-HEP  ce02.tier2.hep.manchester.ac.uk
>> UKI-SCOTGRID-ECDF      ce.glite.ecdf.ed.ac.uk
>> UKI-SCOTGRID-ECDF      mw05.ecdf.ed.ac.uk
>>
>> There is likely to be an urgent request to upgrade in the coming days.
>> We can review the situation at the UKI meeting on Thursday
>> (http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=64531).
>>
>> If you are aware of reasons an upgrade is not possible for GFAL and
>> lcg_utils then please reply to the list.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>> Jeremy
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Maarten Litmaath <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 9:24 PM
>> Subject: new DPM for SAM causes failures at 10% of the sites !!
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>> the SAM CE tests include the replication of a file from the site's
>> default SE for "ops" to a central SE, for which lxdpm104.cern.ch
>> is the default choice and thereby almost always used.
>>
>> The problem with lxdpm104 is its OS: it still runs SLC3, which is
>> no longer supported.  Tony Cass is not happy with this situation.
>>
>> We already upgraded the spare nodes lxdpm101 and lxdpm103 to SLC4
>> and the latest DPM version for gLite 3.1.
>>
>> lxdpm101 is used as the central SE for the SAM validation instance,
>> where we see about 10% more of the sites failing, compared to the
>> production instance.  There are some big sites included.
>>
>> Production:
>>
>> https://lcg-
>> sam.cern.ch:8443/sam/sam.py?sensors=CE&regions=AsiaPacific&regions=CERN
>> &regions=CentralEurope&regions=France&regions=GermanySwitzerland&region
>> s=Italy&regions=NorthernEurope&regions=Russia&regions=SouthEasternEurop
>> e&regions=SouthWesternEurope&regions=UKI&vo=ops&order=RegionName&funct=
>> ShowSensorTests
>>
>> Validation:
>>
>> https://sam-
>> val.cern.ch:8443/sam/sam.py?sensors=CE&regions=AsiaPacific&regions=CERN
>> &regions=CentralEurope&regions=France&regions=GermanySwitzerland&region
>> s=Italy&regions=NorthernEurope&regions=Russia&regions=SouthEasternEurop
>> e&regions=SouthWesternEurope&regions=UKI&vo=ops&order=RegionName&funct=
>> ShowSensorTests
>>
>> As I am writing this, production has 342 green CEs, validation 307.
>>
>> There are many failures in particular in Italy and UKI.
>> The error usually is as follows:
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>> Both SAPath and SARoot are not set about ops VO and SE :
>> lxdpm101.cern.ch
>> lcg_rep: Invalid argument
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>>
>> The cause of that error becomes clear when we look at the versions of
>> GFAL and lcg_utils that are present on the WN.  For example, at RAL:
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>> Using lcg-utils version:
>>
>> + lcg-cp --version
>> lcg_util-1.6.11
>> GFAL-client-1.10.11
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>>
>> That version is more than a year old and cannot handle the way
>> lxdpm101.cern.ch now is published in the info system (I verified that).
>>
>> Conclusion: I think all sites that fail in the SAM validation instance
>> need to be told to upgrade their WNs to the latest version _URGENTLY_.
>>
>> We should give them a deadline by which time we switch the production
>> instance to lxdpm101.cern.ch.
>> Thanks,
>>        Maarten
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Steve Traylen
>> --
>> Scanned by iCritical.
>>     

-- 
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. (Heraclitus)

Northgrid Tier2 Technical Coordinator
http://www.hep.manchester.ac.uk/computing/tier2