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Native installation

Installation for single clients

Setting up native access to EESSI, that is a system-wide deployment that does not require workarounds like using a container, requires the installation and configuration of CernVM-FS.

This requires admin privileges, since you need to install CernVM-FS as an OS package.

The following actions must be taken for a (basic) native installation of EESSI:

  • Installing CernVM-FS itself, ideally using the OS packages provided by the CernVM-FS project (although installing from source is also possible);
  • Installing the EESSI configuration for CernVM-FS, which can be done by installing the cvmfs-config-eessi package that we provide for the most popular Linux distributions (more information available here);
  • Creating a small client configuration file for CernVM-FS (/etc/cvmfs/default.local); see also the CernVM-FS documentation.

The good news is that all of this only requires a handful commands 😲 :

# Installation commands for RHEL-based distros like CentOS, Rocky Linux, Almalinux, Fedora, ...

# install CernVM-FS
sudo yum install -y https://ecsft.cern.ch/dist/cvmfs/cvmfs-release/cvmfs-release-latest.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install -y cvmfs

# install EESSI configuration for CernVM-FS
sudo yum install -y https://github.com/EESSI/filesystem-layer/releases/download/latest/cvmfs-config-eessi-latest.noarch.rpm

# create client configuration file for CernVM-FS (no squid proxy, 10GB local CernVM-FS client cache)
sudo bash -c "echo 'CVMFS_CLIENT_PROFILE="single"' > /etc/cvmfs/default.local"
sudo bash -c "echo 'CVMFS_QUOTA_LIMIT=10000' >> /etc/cvmfs/default.local"

# make sure that EESSI CernVM-FS repository is accessible
sudo cvmfs_config setup

# Installation commands for Debian-based distros like Ubuntu, ...

# install CernVM-FS
sudo apt-get install lsb-release
wget https://ecsft.cern.ch/dist/cvmfs/cvmfs-release/cvmfs-release-latest_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i cvmfs-release-latest_all.deb
rm -f cvmfs-release-latest_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y cvmfs

# install EESSI configuration for CernVM-FS
wget https://github.com/EESSI/filesystem-layer/releases/download/latest/cvmfs-config-eessi_latest_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i cvmfs-config-eessi_latest_all.deb

# create client configuration file for CernVM-FS (no squid proxy, 10GB local CernVM-FS client cache)
sudo bash -c "echo 'CVMFS_CLIENT_PROFILE="single"' > /etc/cvmfs/default.local"
sudo bash -c "echo 'CVMFS_QUOTA_LIMIT=10000' >> /etc/cvmfs/default.local"

# make sure that EESSI CernVM-FS repository is accessible
sudo cvmfs_config setup

Note

The default location for the cache directory is /var/lib/cvmfs. Please, check that the partition on which this directory is stored is big enough to store the cache (and other data). You may override this by adding CVMFS_CACHE_BASE=<some other directory for the cache> to your default.local, e.g., running 

sudo bash -c "echo 'CVMFS_CACHE_BASE=<some other directory for the cache>' >> /etc/cvmfs/default.local"

Installation for larger systems (e.g. clusters)

When using CernVM-FS on a larger number of local clients, e.g. on a HPC cluster or set of workstations, it is very strongly recommended to at least set up some Squid proxies close to your clients. These Squid proxies will be used to cache content that was recently accessed by your clients, which reduces the load on the Stratum 1 servers and reduces the latency for your clients. As a rule of thumb, you should use about one proxy per 500 clients, and have a minimum of two. Instructions for setting up a Squid proxy can be found in the CernVM-FS documentation and in the CernVM-FS tutorial.

Additionally, setting up a private Stratum 1, which will make a full copy of the repository, can be beneficial to improve the latency and bandwidth even further, and to be better protected against network outages. Instructions for setting up your own EESSI Stratum 1 can be found in setting up your own CernVM-FS Stratum 1 mirror server.

Configuring your client to use a Squid proxy

If you have set up one or more Squid proxies, you will have to add them to your CernVM-FS client configuration. This can be done by removing CVMFS_CLIENT_PROFILE="single" from /etc/cvmfs/default.local, and add the following line:

CVMFS_HTTP_PROXY="http://ip-of-your-1st-proxy:port|http://ip-of-your-2nd-proxy:port"

In this case, both proxies are equally preferable. More advanced use cases can be found in the CernVM-FS documentation.

Configuring your client to use a private Stratum 1 mirror server

If you have set up your own Stratum 1 mirror server that replicates the EESSI CernVM-FS repositories, you can instruct your CernVM-FS client(s) to use it by prepending your newly created Stratum 1 to the existing list of EESSI Stratum 1 servers by creating a local CVMFS configuration file for the EESSI domain:

echo 'CVMFS_SERVER_URL="http://<url-or-ip-to-your-stratum1>/cvmfs/@fqrn@;$CVMFS_SERVER_URL"' | sudo tee -a /etc/cvmfs/domain.d/eessi.io.local

It is also strongly recommended to disable the GEO API when using a private Stratum 1, because you want your private Stratum 1 to be picked first anyway. In order to do this, add the following to /etc/cvmfs/domain.d/eessi.io.local:

CVMFS_USE_GEOAPI=no

Note

By prepending your new Stratum 1 to the list of existing Stratum 1 servers and disabling the GEO API, your clients should by default use the private Stratum 1. In case of downtime of your private Stratum 1, they will also still be able to make use of the public EESSI Stratum 1 servers.

Applying changes in the CernVM-FS client configuration files

After you have made any changes to the CernVM-FS client configuration, you will have to apply them. If this is the first time you set up the client, you can simply run:

sudo cvmfs_config setup

If you already had configured the client before, you can reload the configuration for the EESSI repository (or, similarly, for any other repository) using:

sudo cvmfs_config reload -c software.eessi.io