Linux Briefing Jason Allen CD Department Heads Meeting 9/28/2011.

Linux BriefingJason Allen

CD Department Heads Meeting

9/28/2011

Why?Scientific Linux is a Linux release put together by Fermilab, CERN, and various other labs and universities around the world. Its primary purpose is to reduce duplicated effort of the labs, and to have a common install base for the various experimenters.

The base Scientific Linux distribution is basically Enterprise Linux, recompiled from source.

Our main goal for the base distribution is to have everything compatible with Enterprise, with only a few minor additions or changes. Examples of items that were added are Alpine, and OpenAFS.

Our secondary goal is to allow easy customization for a site, without disturbing the Scientific Linux base. The various labs are able to add their own modifications to their own site areas. By the magic of scripts, and the anaconda installer, each site is to be able to create their own distributions with minimal effort. Or, if a user wishes, they can simply install the base Scientific Linux release.

History

GNU Project• Strong belief in “free” software • Gnu responsible for GPL, GCC, Glibc, shell, text

editors, etc• GNU Public License is the embodiment of free

(open source) software philosophy• Nearly complete GNU operating system in

1992.

Beginnings of Linux • Linus wrote first kernel while attending

university in Finland.• Unhappy with licensing terms of Minix• Linux v1.0 kernel released by Linux

Torvalds in 1992

RPM (What you need to know).rpm files are binary packages containing software, install/uninstall scripts

.srpms are packages containing the software’s original source tree and a .spec file which contains the “recipe” for patching, and installing the software.

.rpms are created from .srpms

Fermi Linux 1998-2003• Outcome of PC Farms pilot project• Took Red Hat’s binary RPMs and repackaged

them into Fermi Linux• Improved overall security and customized Red

Hat installer to work better in Fermilab environment.

• FL had limited adoption outside of Fermilab

Birth of Scientific Linux• Fall HEPIX 2003 Red Hat issue was discussed .• For the next HEPIX meeting Connie Sieh and

Troy Dawson created a prototype of a RHEL 3 rebuild. We called this prototype Scientific Linux 3.0.1

• Discussed with CERN a collaboration of a RHEL rebuild.

SL Spins• SL was designed to allow for site

customizations. • A separate tree of site specific RPMs would

be laid over the top of the base SL distribution.

• This gave us Scientific Linux Fermi (SLF) and Scientific Linux Cern (SLC)

SLF vs SL• Scientific Linux Fermi is intended for use at Fermilab• Scientific Linux is intended for use outside Fermilab• SLF adds:

– Custom installer (workgroups, Fermi defaults)– Fermi Compliant Security Settings– Extra packages (rrdtool, drbd, heartbeat, upsbootstrap)– Some overrided packages (OpenSSH, Kcron,

Cryptocard)

Scientific Linux Fermi

~5.5K onsite systems running FL/SLF

Onsite SLF Systems 2004-2006

SLF Systems 2011

SLF Summary• Used throughout Fermilab to run everything

from online data acquisition systems to chip design workstations.

• Very few complaints from users; for the most part it just works.

• Issues related to SLF6 and Kerberos would be a problem with any Linux distro.

Scientific Linux

In 2011 Scientific Linux accidently got popular with the non-HEP crowd…

Hosts Accessing Yum SL Repo

Whoa!

Picked-up by ~3000 websitesPicked-up by ~3000 websites

11/10/2010 RHEL 6 Released

3/3/2011 SL 6 Released

7/10/2011 CentOS 6 Released

“I didn't realize Scientific Linux had a dedicated full-time staff. It looks like I'll be switching from CentOS. This waiting game is grueling enough, but to be almost completely in the dark about the development and a potential release date is the ultimate deal breaker for me.”

axel_2078 , CentOS Social Forum

Distrowatch

SL currently ranks #14. In 2010 SL ranked #53

Distrowatch ranks Linux distros based on number of page hits

Distrowatch ranks Linux distros based on number of page hits

A Few Scientific Linux UsersAlcatel-Lucent Altair Engineering Brookhaven National LaboratoryCERNCornell UniversityDuke UniversityInstitute of Nuclear Physics, PolandInstitute of Space Science, RomaniaJohns Hopkins UniversityLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryLeibniz-Institut fuer Astrophysik PotsdamMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyMonash University National Electrostatics Corp.Omnisys TechologiesPurdue University Tambov State Technical UniversityUniversidade Federal de Santa CatarinUniversité Pierre & Marir Curie

University of AlbertaUniversity of Bristol Universidad Complutense de MadridUniversity of California at Irvine University of CambridgeUniversity of ColoradoUniversity of EdinburghUniversität FreiburgUniversity of IllinoisUniversity of Illinois at ChicagoUniversity of KansasUniversität Konstanz University of Leicester University of ManchesterUniversity of Minnesota University of St.AndrewsUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison US Geological Survey

Institution Long Name Machines SL Used OnCERN Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire 15250 Data center only - clusters, servers

INFN Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare 6702 Many different sites - Mainly compute nodes

DESY - H DESY - site Zeuthen 2284 Mainly servers, some desktops and laptops

GRIDKA Grid Computing Centre Karlsruhe 1600 Grid worker nodesRAL Rutherford Appleton Laboratory 1500 Grid machines

IN2P3Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules 1380 Compute nodes

ASGC Academia Sinca Grid Computing Center 1280 Grid Center - mainly compute nodesGRIF Grille de Recherche d'Ile de France 1200 Grid worker nodesDESY - Z DESY - site Zeuthen 1110 Compute nodesUCL London University College London 1100 compute nodesPSI Paul Scherrer Institute 1000 Mainly compute nodesU of Wisc. University of Wisconsin 900 compute nodesIHEP Beijing Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing 840 Compute Center - mainly compute nodesBristol Michigan and Michigan State University 690 HPC nodes, clusters, and desktops

Atlas Great LakesATLAS Great Lakes Tier-2 (AGLT2) split between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University 460 Mainly servers, some desktops

Ghent University Ghent University 460 HPC Infrastructure

Czech Institue of Physics Institute of Physics of the AS CR in Prague 400 Mainly compute nodes

UKI-LT2-QMUL Queen Mary University of London - Tier 2 Grid Site 400 Grid machinesTriumph TRIUMPH 300 compute nodes

Cornell Cornell's Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics 260 Laboratory for Elementary-Particle PhysicsOxford Oxford Particle Physics 170 Grid SitesETHZ Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich    

Linux Ink     Russian Educational System desktops and servers

A Few More SL Users

Who is helping us?

External SL6 Contributions

SL6 Graphics SL User (Shawn Thompson)

Live CD ETH Zurich

Alpine DESY

Icewm Fermilab / Linux Ink

OpenAFS DESY

What about CERN?• CERN uses SL as the base for Scientific Linux CERN (SLC)

• Over the life cycle of a major release, SLC adds various bug fixes compiled at CERN

• In addition to the Hepix community's influence, it is CERN's use of SLC that drives SL's use by other institutions in Europe

The future

SL Goals1. Provide a stable Linux distro for Fermilab

experiments 2. Provide a stable Linux distro for the HEP

community 3. Collaborate with other institutions,

particularly CERN, to share the support and development workload.

4. Promote the Fermilab brand.