Difference between revisions of "Administrator Guide"

Revision as of 16:45, 5 May 2009

This Guide covers the installation, configuration, and maintenance of gCore.

Prerequisites

The following are prerequisite for the installation of gCore:

• A platform compatible GT requirements.

• J2SE 1.5.08 SDK or greater. Sun's reference implementation is recommended, but versions from IBM, HP, or BEA should work equally well.

• Ant 1.6.5+ to build gCF sources or to develop services with it.

• an SVN client to install gCore from the SVN repository.

• GNU tar to install gCore from archived distributions.

• sudo privileges on the shell.

The following are pre-requisites for the operation of gHN in any infrastructure:

• A static IP address and preferably a DNS name.

The following are pre-requisites for the operation of gHN in a secure infrastructure:

• A ntp server to synchronise the machine's clock for correct credential validation.

• A host certificate and private key (owned by the user that runs the container) respectively in:

 /etc/grid-security/hostpubliccert.pem (please check that the certificate file has -rw-r--r-- permissions)
 /etc/grid-security/hostprivatekey.pem (please check that the private key file has -r-------- permissions).

Installation

Once downloaded, gCore can be installed in a directory of choice (the gCore location). In either case, proceed to the installation as a a non-privileged user with read and write permissions on the gCore location.

The structure of the installation is the following:

|-bin
|
|-config
|
|-endorsed
|
|-etc
|
|-lib
|
|-libexec
|
|-logs
|
|-share

Some folders are of immediate interest to administrators and developers alike:

Configuration

Configuring the installation can be roughly distributed across the following steps: configuring the environment, the container, the gHN associated with a running instance of the container, and the operation of the gHN in a secure infrastructure.

Configuring the Environment

• Define an environment variable GLOBUS_LOCATION and point it to the gCore location. Assuming a bash shell:

export GLOBUS_LOCATION = ...absolute path to your gCore location...

• (optional) Add $GLOBUS_LOCATION/bin to the value of your PATH environment variable.:

export PATH = $PATH:$GLOBUS_LOCATION/bin

• (optional) If building gCF-compliant services, define an environment variable BUILD_LOCATION and set it to the location from which ant will be invoked and where temporary build structures and artefacts will be located:

export BUILD_LOCATION = ...absolute path to your build location...

Configuring the Container

Specify the hostname of your machine as the value of logicalHost parameter in the container's configuration file $GLOBUS_LOCATION/etc/globus_wsrf_core/server-config.wsdd:

<parameter name="logicalHost" value="..yourhostname..."/>

Configuring the gHN

The configuration of the gHN that relates to its operation within the infrastructure and can be found in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/config/GHNConfig.xml. The file $GLOBUS_LOCATION/config/GHNConfig.client.xml can be used to dedicate a separate configuration to a gHN that operates in client mode.

The following gHN properties are available for configuration:

For example, the configuration required to join the gHN to the /gcube/devsec and /gcube/testing VOs is the following:

 infrastructure = gcube 
 startScopes = devsec,testing

For an in-depth coverage of scope and scope-related parameters (infrastructure and startScopes) see the Developer Guide.

Configuring Logging

A running gCore container will produce extensive logs in accordance with the log4j configuration directives container in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/container-log4j.properties. By default, the container logs in a file called $GLOBUS_LOCATION/logs/container.fulllog with a TRACE level for all the gCF components, and in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/logs/container.log with a INFO level for all the gCF components. Local Services have also dedicated file loggers.

Configure container security

• Set the Security Descriptor of the underlying container in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/etc/globus_wsrf_core/global_security_descriptor.xml, using this example as a guide.

Note: Please include the configuration <context-timer-interval value="300000"/> to ease the effect of a well-known bug with the underlying technologies (as in the example above).

• Add the following configuration in the <code><globalConfiguration> section of $GLOBUS_LOCATION/etc/globus_wsrf_core/server-config.wsdd:

<parameter name="containerSecDesc" value="etc/globus_wsrf_core/global_security_descriptor.xml"/>

Configure VOMS credentials

VOMS credentials must be installed in the local system to verify VOMS assertions. To do this:

• Copy the certificates of trusted VOMS servers in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/etc/grid-security/vomsdir.

Note: Please check that certificate files have -rw-r--r-- permissions.

• Create VOMS files in /opt/glite/etc/vomses using the following conventions:

• file naming convention:

 <VO Name>-<VOMS SERVICE HOSTNAME>

• content convention:

 "<VO Name>" "<VOMS SERVICE HOSTNAME>" "<VOMS SERVICE PORT>" "<DN of VOMS CERTIFICATE>" "<VO LOCAL NAME>"

Example: "devsec" :grids01.gcore.org" "15001" "/C=IT/O=INFN/OU=Host/L=GCORE/CN=grids01.gcore.org" "devsec"

Note: The VO name devsec should be associated to the VOMS service running on grids01.gcore.org. This will assure to properly validate assertions contained in proxy credentials.

Install voms-proxy-init command for local testing (optional)

• Download the required rpm and configuration file.

• Install rpms in the order in which they appear in the download page.

• Copy the configuration file to the directory /etc/glite/profile.d/

• Modify the configuration file in accordance with with the local values of the environment variables JAVA_HOME and GLOBUS_LOCATION.

Verify the Installation

To verify the installation, start the container with the script $GLOBUS_LOCATION/bin/gcore-start-container. Assuming PATH is set as recommended above:

gcore-start-container

will suffice. Any instance of the container which is already running should be automatically kill-ed and the new instance should log the list of deployed services in nohup.out and detailed information about the startup of local services in container.log. Both files will be created in location from which the container was started, Lack of visible errors in both files indicates a successful gCore installation.

By default, the command above starts the container on the 8080 port. To switch on another port, use the -p <port> option.