19-May-2003 Solaris service: Status and plans at CERN Ignacio Reguero IT / Product Support / Unix Infrastructure Presented by Manuel Guijarro

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Solaris Service Status  Second platform for LHC experiments  Over 650 active Solaris machines  Including SUNDEV facility Three way Sun cluster for database servers Large number of machines out of the computing centre 145 machines in CMS collaboration 90 machines in the Electronics Support Cluster (CAE) 50 machines in the Accelerator Sector for LHC magnet design 30+ machines in Administration Sector 8 machines for Survey

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Recommended System Level Recommended System Level  Solaris 8 HW0202 Since certified in September 2002  + Patches in /afs/cern.ch/project/sun/solaris/patches2.8 “Frozen” recommended patch kit Updated (+tested before deployment) a couple of times a year + when specific problems demand it Applied automatically by the installation server or on demand: patches.install procedure  Why not following all recommended patch kits?: Example: Solaris 8 kernel patch that breaks AFS

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam System Installation System Installation  SUNINST0: Solaris Network Installation Server on Solaris 8 Jumpstart server that bootstraps SUE framework for fully automated installation  Using DHCP rather than RARP DHCP vendor options convey installation information (mount point, server, etc.) Required to register DHCP signature for each model  Sun in.dhcpd Version 3.5 Very different from older versions due to DB for configuration Default parameters do not work on large networks. Required /usr/lib/inet/in.dhcpd -v -h 16 -l 6 -o 320  Due to bug, routers occasionally loose DHCP vendor options So occasional retry required Network group solving the problem Planning to migrate to DHCP server managed by Network group

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Current System Tools Current System Tools  SUE system automation framework Allows fully automated system installation + periodic updates 78 SUE features available for Solaris Described in support/UI/Docs/SolarisFeatures.html For instance /afs/cern.ch/project/sue/pro/sun4x_58/dist/feature/cern Describes the recommended CERN workstation installation  ASIS software repository All third party software distributed through ASIS tools

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Desktop Tools + Compilers Desktop Tools + Compilers  Web Browser and Mail Agent Mozilla  Mail agents Pine 4.40 Evolution  Java b92  Perl 5.005_03  GNU Compilers gcc as default compiler in ASIS gcc as Certified (as alternative to in /usr/local/bin) gcc-alt (specific prefix to allow multiversion) and 3.2.2

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Sun Compilers Sun Compilers  Decoupled from system level  Main Versions Available Sun WorkShop 6 update 1 C Patch /03/04 Sun WorkShop 6 update 2 C Patch /04/10 Forte Developer 7 C Patch /02/09  Forte Developer 7 provides C++ template support missing in previous versions However important problems still exist in this area: Templated template parameters still not supported i.e. arguments to templates that are templates themselves not allowed To Test Sun One Studio 8 but not much hope: told that first priority is compile time reduction

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Tool Standardization  Agreed with Linux people and OK from mail people on basic products for Web Browser Mailer  Mozilla, Pine and in the future Evolution  However, we cannot agree on precise versions as Linux support feel bound to RedHat versions  In principle no coordinated customization or configuration tools

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Solaris Certification Process  Mail list established  Members are contact persons from main CERN Solaris users Including CMS and ATLAS experiments  To reach consensus on major decisions On system software levels On which tools to support

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Work in Progress  Implementation of EDG WP4 fabric management for Solaris Integrated with native jumpstart installation With System V packages rather then RPMs To ease system software maintenance  Visitor paid by Sun working with Solaris and WP4 teams.  Goal: To certify Solaris 9 with WP4 tools rather then SUE and ASIS before the end of 2003

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Gnome for Solaris  Gnome 2 announced as standard desktop for Solaris 9  Opportunity for convergence with Linux  We would be able to share most of the experience, configuration scripts, default settings, etc.

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Ximian Connector Ximian Connector  WebDAV + MAPI support for Evolution mail agent  Commercial product  Needed to exploit full functionality of Exchange server For instance shared calendars  Produced by persons leading Gnome desktop development  Tested by M. Christaller and Ph. Defert Still preliminary stage But first results are promising

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Evolution of SUNDEV Facility Evolution of SUNDEV Facility  ISS DNS managed facility for physics software development on Solaris Composed of 8 dual 450MHz Sun 220s Cleaned up last year  Fully automated installation procedure based on SUE (project_sundev feature) Guaranteed uniformity of the nodes Improved availability Enormously reduced the number of interventions  Technology refresh foreseen for 2003 Sun pushing Blade server 1600 Could be interesting to look at Sun N1 management system and compare with EDG WP4 However Blade CPUs not the most powerful (16 x 650 MHz) Need to negotiate good financial conditions

19-May-2003HEPiX Amsterdam Conclusion Conclusion  Although Smaller population than Linux Future uncertain  It is still alive and kicking  Solaris is a Unix system => A close relative of Linux with Easy portability to/from Linux Interesting for code validation + Commercial products Large SMP HA Clusters Availability of commercial support Both HW and SW Guaranteed compatibility between Solaris versions