ISOC Software

Overview

The LICOS system is designed to record, package and transfer LAT data in a flight-like manner. This design goal is achieved by incorporating data-handling software developed for the Instrument Science Operations Center. This software implements the conventions for data transfer documented in the GLAST Operations Data Products ICD.

External Dependencies

The ISOC software, like LICOS, is implemented primarily as a set of Python modules, and therefore has the same dependencies on the Python interpreter as LICOS. As of 30 August 2005, both packages are targeted to run on Python 2.4.1. For the Mobile Rack system, we assume that Python 2.4.1 is installed under /usr/local. The following is the complete list of supporting packages, in addition to Python, required for proper operation of the ISOC software. I've indicated which dependencies, to the best of my knowledge, are shared between LICOS and the ISOC software.

RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 Packages

The following packages from the RHEL4 distribution must be installed:

• postgresql-7.4.7-2.RHEL4.1
• postgresql-server-7.4.7-2.RHEL4.1
• postgresql-devel-7.4.7-2.RHEL4.1
• postgresql-libs-7.4.7-2.RHEL4.1
• jpackage-utils-1.6.0-2jpp_3rh

Locally-built packages

The following packages are built locally, generally from source downloaded from the Web, but using a customized RPM specfile and potentially with some patching of the source distro during the build process. All the specfiles for these packages are maintained in the SPECS module of the Online CVS repository at :ext:centaurusa.slac.stanford.edu:/nfs/slac/g/glast/online/cvsroot. For Web-available tarballs, the source distro location is documented in the corresponding specfile. For distros that are not directly web-accessible (e.g. FASTCopy, Sun JDK), the source distributions are maintained in the SOURCES module of the Online CVS repository. All locally-created distribution patches are also stored in the SOURCES module.

Note that that the build-numbers of these packages may change if the custom installed configurations of the software is modified in some way. The latest builds of these RPMS should be found in /nfs/online/rpms/ on the bastion host.

Building Distribution RPM's

The ISOC software is packaged as two RPMs: The ISOC RPM contains the core data-handling code, and the ISOC-Web RPM contains a JSP-based Web application that is used to monitor the data-transfer system. Since I envision that this code will evolve much more rapidly than the underlying dependencies, I've set up a two-stage process for generating RPM's from the source code in CVS. Step 1 produces a source tarball based on a specified CVS tag in the repository; the tarball includes a specfile with the appropriate version information. Step 2 uses this tarball to produce an installable RPM, using the rpmbuild command's ability to build from a specfile included in a tarball.

Creating the source distribution

The following commands retrieve the necessary helper tools from the ISOC CVS repository and create source distributions for the ISOC and ISOC-Web packages:

$ export CVSROOT=:ext:centaurusa.slac.stanford.edu:/nfs/slac/g/glast/online/cvsroot
$ export CVS_RSH=ssh
$ cvs co -d DistTools ISOC/DistTools
$ cd DistTools/ISOC
$ ./makedist.sh HEAD 1.2.0 1.glast
$ cd ../ISOC-Web
$ ./makedist.sh HEAD 1.0.0 1.glast
$ cd ..

Creating the installable RPM's

The following commands will use the source distributions created above to make installable RPM's of the software. These operations assume that the user has set up a private RPM build area by configuring their ~/.rpmmacros file appropriately.

$ rpmbuild -ta ISOC/ISOC-1.2.0.tar.gz
$ rpmbuild -ta ISOC-Web/ISOC-Web-1.0.0.tar.gz

The above will create RPMs with filenames of the form:

ISOC-1.2.0-1.glast.i386.rpm
ISOC-Web-1.0.0-1.glast.i386.rpm

Once the RPM's are built, they can be installed with `rpm -ivh`.

Configuring the Installed Software

Once the ISOC packages and their dependencies are installed on a fresh system, some installation-specific setup of both the underlying services and the ISOC software itself is necessary.

Starting daemons and services

Issue the following commands to bring up the supporting services and ensure that they will start up when the system is rebooted:

$ su
# /sbin/service postgreql start
# /sbin/service tomcat55 start
# /sbin/service flogicd start
# /sbin/service xinetd restart
# /sbin/chkconfig postgresql on
# /sbin/chkconfig tomcat55 on
# /sbin/chkconfig flogicd on
# /sbin/chkconfig xinetd on

Configure PostgreSQL

The FASTCopy automation software (module ISOC.FASTCopyDB.FASTCopyDB) uses a set of database tables to perform and track incoming and outgoing FASTCopy transfers. On a fresh installation, a PostgreSQL user and database must be created, and the PostgreSQL server must be configured to allow local and network access to the database. Note that creating a PostgreSQL user does not create a system user account. The 'createuser' command will prompt for a password used to authenticate the user to the database. Examine the file /usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ISOC/sitedep/sitedep-default.ini, and use the string specified in the 'password' entry in the 'dsn' parameter of the 'FASTCopyDB' stanza.

$ su
# su postgres
$ createuser -A -D -P GLAST_ISOC
$ createdb -O GLAST_ISOC GLAST_ISOC
$ exit
# exit
$

Once the PostgreSQL user and database are created, edit the file /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf and change the line "tcpip_socket = false" near the top of the file to "tcpip_socket = true". Edit the file /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf and add the following two lines immediately above the line beginning "local all all...":

local   GLAST_ISOC      GLAST_ISOC                      md5
host    GLAST_ISOC      GLAST_ISOC      0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 md5

After these configuration files are modified, restart the database server using the following commands:

$ su
# /sbin/service postgresql restart

Load the FASTCopyDB schema

After PostgreSQL is reconfigured and restarted, use the following commands to load the FASTCopyDB schema into the GLAST_ISOC database as the GLAST_ISOC user (note that the psql command will prompt for the GLAST_ISOC user's password):

$ cd /usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ISOC/FASTCopyDB/dbase
$ psql -U GLAST_ISOC -f build_postgresql.sql GLAST_ISOC

Once the basic schema is loaded, the name of the installation host must be added to a table in the database. Determine the fully-qualified hostname of the machine, e.g. "lat-hobbit4.slac.stanford.edu" and execute the following command:

$ psql -U GLAST_ISOC -d GLAST_ISOC -c "insert into fcopy_submithost values( (select max(submithost_pk)+1 from fcopy_submithost), 'lat-hobbit4.slac.stanford.edu');"

Similarly, the Unix usernames of any accounts from which outgoing files will be submitted must also be added to a table in the database. Determine the desired list of accounts, e.g. "ric jim selim" and execute the following command:

$ for u in ric jim selim ; do
> psql -U GLAST_ISOC -d GLAST_ISOC -c "insert into fcopy_submitter values( (select max(submitter_pk)+1 from fcopy_submitter), '$u');"
> done

Enable the FASTCopy-automation cron jobs

The ISOC RPM installation creates a user account named 'glastops' under which the FASTCopyDB software and the underlying FASTCopy operations take place. Cron jobs executing under this account are used to scan the database tables for work to be performed. Although the installation adds these entries to the glastops crontab file, they are initially commented out. Use the following command to bring up the glastops crontab in the vi editor; uncomment all the job entries and save and close the file to activate the FASTCopy cron jobs:

$ su
# VISUAL=vi crontab -u glastops -e
# exit
$