NOX/Client installation

ARC Client Download and Installation

The ARC client provide all middleware command line tools for proxy, job and data management.

While most on the client installation works out-of-the-box and one does not need administrator privileges, some small platform dependent setup steps may still be needed.

Windows

Client software

• For the Nox 1.0.0 release, download the installer file and run it. It will install the ARC software as well as all needed dependencies and CA certificates.

• Check the client configuration instructions.

Security: Personal certificates

Install Grid certificate (usercert.pem) and private key (userkey.pem) by copying them into a .globus directory in your home directory:

On Windows XP:

Copy your usercert.pem file to: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\.globus\usercert.pem
Copy your userkey.pem  file to: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\.globus\userkey.pem

On Vista and later:

Copy your usercert.pem file to: C:\Users\<username>\.globus\usercert.pem
Copy your userkey.pem  file to: C:\Users\<username>\.globus\userkey.pem

NB! One may have problems with making a .globus file (starting with a dot) using the explorer. Open a DOS prompt and make the directory

  XP:
  cd C:\Documents and Settings\<username> 

  Vista, 7:

  cd C:\Users\<username>

  mkdir .globus

Linux

Standalone client package

The Linux standalone client is conceptually similar to Windows installation in the sence that it contains all the necessary pre-compiled software. It is distributed as a tar ball and can be installed at any location and does not require root privileges.

• Download the .tgz package corresponding to your OS through NorduGrid downloads server (look for nordugrid-arc-nox software)

• Place the tar-ball containing the standalone client in any suitable place and unpack.

tar -xzf nordugrid-arc-nox-standalone-<version>.tgz
cd nordugrid-arc-nox-standalone
source setup.sh

In C-shell, you will need to run "source setup.csh"

• Check the client configuration instructions.

Client from repository

• Configure the repository as indicated in the Configuration guide. The following methods are supported:

RPM and DEB repositories for ARC

Repository	Command
yum	yum install nordugrid-arc-nox-client
up2date	up2date @"ARC Client"
apt	apt-get install nordugrid-arc-nox-client

If you want to be able to use production ARC sites and existing storage (e.g. in NDGF), you will need Globus plugins as well:

   nordugrid-arc-nox-plugins-globus

If one wants to use the Python arclib wrappers, an additional package is needed:

   nordugrid-arc-nox-python

And guess what, with this package you also get Chelonia, the self healing ARC storage system. Totally free of charge!

A complete example with yum:

yum install nordugrid-arc-nox-client nordugrid-arc-nox-python nordugrid-arc-nox-plugins-globus

• Check the client configuration instructions.

Security: Private keys and CA certificates

• Install your private and public keys (userkey.pem and usercert.pem) in $HOME/.globus
  • You can install them anywhere else and with any other name, but make sure to define the following environment variables:
    • X509_USER_KEY points to your private key location (usually $HOME/.globus/userkey.pem)
    • X509_USER_CERT points to your public certificate location (usually $HOME/.globus/usercert.pem)

• It is absolutelly necessary to install keys of potentially relevant Certification Authorities. These are packaged only for RPM-based distributions and inside standalone packages, so in case you install from source or for Debian/Ubuntu, you'll need to do:

  wget http://dist.eugridpma.info/distribution/current/igtf-policy-installation-bundle-1.32.tar.gz
  tar xvzf igtf-policy-installation-bundle-1.32.tar.gz
  cd igtf-policy-installation-bundle-1.32
  ./configure --with-profile=classic
  sudo make install

You may need to browse to that repository first and find out what is the most recent version number, instead of 1.32

Bear in mind that this will install more CA keys than you'll ever need.

MAC OS

• There are no separate client packages for Mac OS X, so you'll have to install the entire NOX. Follow instructions for Mac OS X, both Leopard and Snow Leopard

• Check the client configuration instructions.

Client Configuration

The client will at the first run create a configuration directory in your home directory called .arc .

Location on Microsoft Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\.arc

Location on Microsoft Windows Vista and 7:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\.arc

Location of Linux systems:

$HOME/.arc

First time one runs a arc command the client will provide you with a default client configuration file client.conf

You can uncomment various options. Below is an example of some working default settings:

[common]
defaultservices=index:ARC0:ldap://grid.tsl.uu.se:2135/Mds-Vo-name=Sweden,o=grid computing:ARC1:https://interop.grid.niif.hu:2010/arex-x509 

[alias]
arc1=computing:ARC0:ldap://grid.tsl.uu.se:2135/nordugrid-cluster-name=grid.tsl.uu.se,Mds-Vo-name=local,o=grid
arc2=computing:ARC0:ldap://ce03.titan.uio.no:2135/nordugrid-cluster-name=ce03.titan.uio.no,Mds-Vo-name=local,o=grid
arc3=computing:ARC0:ldap://grid.uio.no:2135/nordugrid-cluster-name=grid.uio.no,Mds-Vo-name=local,o=grid
arex1=computing:ARC1:https://interop.grid.niif.hu:2010/arex-x509
cream=computing:CREAM:ldap://cream.grid.upjs.sk:2170/o=grid

For detailed description of configuration options, refer to the ARC Client manual.

VOMS

In order to use VOMS proxy one has to create a .voms directory in the home directory and place there a file with the name vomses.

Location on Microsoft Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\.voms\vomses 

Location on Microsoft Windows Vista and 7:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\.voms\vomses 

Location of Linux systems:

$HOME/.voms/vomses 

This file contains a list of the virtual organizations where you are a member, for example:

"atlas" "lcg-voms.cern.ch" "15001" "/DC=ch/DC=cern/OU=computers/CN=lcg-voms.cern.ch" "atlas"
"atlas" "voms.cern.ch" "15001" "/DC=ch/DC=cern/OU=computers/CN=voms.cern.ch" "atlas"
"knowarc" "arthur.hep.lu.se" "15001" "/O=Grid/O=NorduGrid/CN=host/arthur.hep.lu.se" "knowarc.eu"

For more details about VOMS, refer to VOMS Usage Notes.

Job list

As one starts submitting jobs the client will keep track of them in a file called jobs.xml in the .arc directory placed in your home area. If one wants a clean start without error messages related to jobs that may be old and removed from the servers, it is possible to simply remove the file.