Revision as of 06:30, 24 June 2021

This page is about the CVMFS service at RAL.

As described in the official documentation, CVMFS provides a scalable and reliable software distribution service. It is implemented as a POSIX read-only file system in user space, where files and directories are hosted on standard web servers as single source of data, and mounted in the universal namespace /cvmfs.

The STFC Scientific Computing Department at RAL maintains one of these single sources of data, or Stratum-0, for several communities:

• GridPP
• EGI
• IRIS

This documentation is for the VO content managers.

Official CVMFS pages

• CVMFS Documentation
• Q&As and Discussion Forum

Request the creation of a new repository

In the case of a new repository for EGI, steps are described here

Onboarding new Content Managers

Steps for a new VO Content Manager to be granted access to the Stratum-0 at RAL.

Request access

Request access to the service sending an email to cvmfs-support@gridpp.rl.ac.uk In the email, include the following information:

• Name of the VO or CVMFS repository.
• Distinguish Name (DN) from your X509 grid certificate.

Mailing list

All VO content managers should join the CVMFS-UPLOADER-USERS mailing list in JISCMAIL.

Relevant documents

Read these documents:

• [link_will_go_here_when_ready PRIVACY NOTICE]
• [link_will_go_here_when_ready Acceptable Use Policy]

Distributing new content

To login to the service, make sure you have a valid X509 proxy (with the same DN provided in this step), and execute the following command:

gsissh -p 1975 cvmfs-upload01.gridpp.rl.ac.uk

If you are the Content Manager for more than one repository, you would need to specify explicit which account you want to login to:

gsissh -p 1975 <myreposgm>@cvmfs-upload01.gridpp.rl.ac.uk

To copy data:

gsiscp -P 1975 <source> cvmfs-upload01.gridpp.rl.ac.uk:<destination>

After login, you will find a single directory in the home directory:

[myreposgm@cvmfs-uploader02 ~]$ ls
cvmfs_repo

Add to that directory the new content you want to distribute.

Files and directories cannot be distributed with CVMFS if they are not world-wide readable. You may want to ensure they have the right permissions with the following commands:

find . -type d -exec chmod go+rx {} \;
find . -type f -exec chmod go+r {} \;