SDSC "cern" roll

Overview

The SDSC cern-roll bundles software tools published by CERN into a Rocks(r) roll that can be installed easily on a Rocks(r) cluster.

root packages for curve fitting, plotting, high energy physics computations and data analysis

geant (Geometry ANd Tracking) simulates particles passing through matter via Monte Carlo methods

clhep (Class Library for High Energy Physics). Math libraries for vector math, random number generation and linear algebra

Requirements

To build/install this roll you must have root access to a Rocks development machine (e.g., a frontend or development appliance).

If your Rocks development machine does not have Internet access you must download the appropriate cern source file(s) using a machine that does have Internet access and copy them into the src/cern directories on your Rocks development machine.

Dependencies

The sdsc-roll must be installed on the build machine, since the build process depends on make include files provided by that roll.

The roll sources assume that modulefiles provided by SDSC gnucompiler and cmake rolls are available, but it will build without them as long as the environment variables they provide are otherwise defined.

Building

To build the cern-roll, execute this on a Rocks development machine (e.g., a frontend or development appliance):

% make 2>&1 | tee build.log

A successful build will create the file cern-*.disk1.iso. If you built the roll on a Rocks frontend, proceed to the installation step. If you built the roll on a Rocks development appliance, you need to copy the roll to your Rocks frontend before continuing with installation.

Installation

To install, execute these instructions on a Rocks frontend:

% rocks add roll *.iso
% rocks enable roll cern
% cd /export/rocks/install
% rocks create distro

Subsequent installs of compute and login nodes will then include the contents of the cern-roll. To avoid cluttering the cluster frontend with unused software, the cern-roll is configured to install only on compute and login nodes. To force installation on your frontend, run this command after adding the cern-roll to your distro

% rocks run roll cern host=NAME | bash

where NAME is the DNS name of a compute or login node in your cluster.

In addition to the software itself, the roll installs cern environment module files in:

/opt/modulefiles/applications/cern

Testing

The cern-roll includes a test script which can be run to verify proper installation of the roll documentation, binaries and module files. To run the test scripts execute the following command(s):

% /root/rolltests/cern.t

sdsc / cern-roll