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.FermilabCERN 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 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 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

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 websites

11/10/2010RHEL 6 Released 3/3/2011SL 6 Released 7/10/2011CentOS 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

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 Tambov State Technical University Universidade Federal de Santa Catarin Université Pierre & Marir Curie 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 University of Illinois at Chicago University of Kansas Universität Konstanz University of Leicester University of Manchester University of Minnesota University of St.Andrews University of Wisconsin-Madison US Geological Survey

InstitutionLong NameMachinesSL Used On CERNConseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire15250Data center only - clusters, servers INFNIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare6702Many different sites - Mainly compute nodes DESY - HDESY - site Zeuthen2284Mainly servers, some desktops and laptops GRIDKAGrid Computing Centre Karlsruhe1600Grid worker nodes RALRutherford Appleton Laboratory1500Grid machines IN2P3 Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules1380Compute nodes ASGCAcademia Sinca Grid Computing Center1280Grid Center - mainly compute nodes GRIFGrille de Recherche d'Ile de France1200Grid worker nodes DESY - ZDESY - site Zeuthen1110Compute nodes UCL LondonUniversity College London1100compute nodes PSIPaul Scherrer Institute1000Mainly compute nodes U of Wisc.University of Wisconsin900compute nodes IHEP BeijingInstitute of High Energy Physics in Beijing840Compute Center - mainly compute nodes BristolMichigan and Michigan State University690HPC nodes, clusters, and desktops Atlas Great Lakes ATLAS Great Lakes Tier-2 (AGLT2) split between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University460Mainly servers, some desktops Ghent University 460HPC Infrastructure Czech Institue of PhysicsInstitute of Physics of the AS CR in Prague400Mainly compute nodes UKI-LT2-QMULQueen Mary University of London - Tier 2 Grid Site400Grid machines TriumphTRIUMPH300compute nodes CornellCornell's Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics260Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics OxfordOxford Particle Physics170Grid Sites ETHZEidgenössische 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 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.