Linux Briefing Jason Allen CD Department Heads Meeting

Linux Briefing Jason 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 Open. AFS. 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 v 1. 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 (Open. SSH, Kcron, Cryptocard)

Scientific Linux Fermi

Onsite SLF Systems 2004 -2006 ~5. 5 K onsite systems running FL/SLF

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 SLF 6 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 websites

11/10/2010 RHEL 6 Released 3/3/2011 SL 6 Released 7/10/2011 Cent. OS 6 Released

“I didn't realize Scientific Linux had a dedicated fulltime staff. It looks like I'll be switching from Cent. OS. 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 , Cent. OS Social Forum

Distrowatch ranks Linux distros based on number of page hits SL currently ranks #14. In 2010 SL ranked #53

A Few Scientific Linux Users Alcatel-Lucent Altair Engineering Brookhaven National Laboratory CERN Cornell University Duke University Institute of Nuclear Physics, Poland Institute of Space Science, Romania Johns Hopkins University Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Leibniz-Institut fuer Astrophysik Potsdam Massachusetts Institute of Technology Monash University National Electrostatics Corp. Omnisys Techologies Purdue University of Alberta University of Bristol Universidad Complutense de Madrid University of California at Irvine University of Cambridge University of Colorado University of Edinburgh Universität Freiburg University of Illinois at Chicago University of Kansas Universität Konstanz University of Leicester University of Manchester University of Minnesota University of St. Andrews

A Few More SL Users CERN Institution Long Name Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire Machines 15250 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 RAL 1600 1500 Grid worker nodes Grid machines IN 2 P 3 ASGC GRIF DESY - Z UCL London PSI U of Wisc. IHEP Beijing Bristol Grid Computing Centre Karlsruhe Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules Academia Sinca Grid Computing Center Grille de Recherche d'Ile de France DESY - site Zeuthen University College London Paul Scherrer Institute University of Wisconsin Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing Michigan and Michigan State University 1380 1200 1110 1100 1000 900 840 690 Compute nodes Grid Center - mainly compute nodes Grid worker nodes Compute nodes compute nodes Mainly compute nodes Compute Center - mainly compute nodes HPC nodes, clusters, and desktops Atlas Great Lakes Ghent University ATLAS Great Lakes Tier-2 (AGLT 2) split between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University Ghent University 460 Mainly servers, some desktops HPC Infrastructure Czech Institue of Physics Institute of Physics of the AS CR in Prague 400 Mainly compute nodes UKI-LT 2 -QMUL Triumph Queen Mary University of London - Tier 2 Grid Site TRIUMPH 400 300 Grid machines compute nodes Cornell Oxford ETHZ Cornell's Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics Oxford Particle Physics Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich 260 170 Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics Grid Sites Linux Ink SL Used On Data center only - clusters, servers Russian Educational System desktops and servers

Who is helping us?

External SL 6 Contributions SL 6 Graphics SL User (Shawn Thompson) Live CD ETH Zurich Alpine DESY Icewm Fermilab / Linux Ink Open. AFS 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 Goals 1. 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.