AliEn release notes - version v2-19

The present release contains AliEn version v2-19. The following sections provide information about this release, major changes, fixed and still pending issues. For installation instructions please refer to the Download section.

Change log

 

WLCG modules

Changes in CREAM.pm only. These changes include:

  • Removal of any reference to the CREAM-DB (used in alienv2.18 as an information provider in AliEn). The unique and remaining information provider we currently use is the resource BDII.
  • We keep the env variable: CE_USE_BDII. This variable was included in alienv2.18 to chose the info provider used at submission time (CE_USE_BDII = 1 meant the info provider was the BDII. Absence of this variable meant the info provider was the CREAM-DB). In spite of the removal of the CREAM-DB as info provider we keep it foreseeing a lighter info provider that should be develop by the CREAM-CE team.
  • Inclusion of a new query to the BDII. This new query interrogates the resource BDII to figure out the status of the CREAM-CE. In the case the publication of this service is draining, maintenance, etc, the corresponding service will not be used and no proxy delegation procedures nor new agent submissions operations will be performed. This procedure enables a more dynamic use of the resources without touching the LDAP configuration each time a CREAM-CE is put in maintenance mode by the site admin. The operations will be transparent for AliEn and new submissions will start as soon as the status of the service changes in the BDII with no additional service restart up operations.
  • None of this changes in CREAM-pm requires any change in the LDAP configuration nor in the local configuration of the voboxes.

Packman update

  • New AFS module for sw installation purposes via packman (called afs.pm and available under: alien/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/AliEn/PackMan/Local/afs.pm). Applicable to CERN only, where the sw area system is AFS and in addition there are separate volumes for readable and writable purposes. The new module will use the writable area to install the new packages via packman. Once the installation is performed, the module will synchronize the contains of both the writable and readable volumes. Jobs will access the readable area only for reading purposes.
  • In order to activate this new module the packman service requires a minor modification in LDAP: the Installmethod field has to be specified and with the value: Local::afs. This will be enough to activate this module. The rest of the sites will not require any operation since they will not use this module.

File catalogue

  • File quotas count number of files(including mirrored copies) and size of files. Quotas updated synchronously for adding files. For deleting files, if there are multiple physical copies of the file, then quotas update synchronously for a single copy, and are rolled back completely for all copies once the files are physically deleted.
  • All access to the database which contains the file catalogue happens through the Authen service.
  • The rm and rmdir command in the Perl shell enqueues files for physical deletion.
  • The deleteMirror command enqueues copy for physical deletion and updates quotas.
  • The cp command in the Perl shell makes a new physical copy of the file.
  • The removeExpiredFiles command from the Perl shell removes all expired entries from the LFN booking pool and then deletes the files physically from the SEs. This can only be executed by the admin. A file remains in the LFN booking pool till all its copies are deleted.

Envelopes

Both new and old envelopes have been rewritten. New functionality includes:

  • Reduced to a signed envelope
  • Removed encryption
  • Smaller envelopes

Oracle support

Added Oracle support to use as backend for AliEn

 

Job memory consumption

Added jobagent functionality to monitor job resident memory consumption and issue kill command when limits are exceeded.

Httpd update

Checks for X5O9 certificates.

proxyserver

proxyserver has been removed.

Package/version changes

  • Perl 5.10.1 with threading enabled
  • Removed SASL packages

Pending issues

  1. Propagating kill command to the jobagent.

 

Prerequisites and dependencies

The AliEn distribution aims to have minimal outside dependencies at the expense of extra disk space

required for installation. For a list of the dependencies, please refer to the Build System.

Platforms supported

This binary distribution of this release is provided for the following platforms:

  • 32 bit i686, any Linux distribution, glibc-2.5 or higher
  • 64 bit x86_64, any Linux distribution, glibc-2.5 or higher
  • 64 bit Itanium, any Linux distribution, glibc-2.5 or higher
  • 32 bit i686 Apple (MacOS-Intel)
  • 64 bit x86_64 Apple (MacOS-Intel)

Support and Bug Reports

Please report bugs to LCG Savannah.

License

All AliEn code is open source and developed at CERN by ALICE Off-line Project. For more information on

the licence and copyright statements, please refer to the EGEE License.