Running LHCb software on Ubuntu 10.10

a modern operating system with a nice desktop environment, support for hardware drivers, ... no comparison with slcxxx, cernvm, ...
recipe is also valid for Ubuntu 10.04

• Download ISO image for Ubuntu

• Create a Virtual Machine

  (in case Ubuntu is used as native operating system, this step is of course not needed)
  
  • Download Virtual Box for your host operating system
  • Start Virtual Box
    • Select New: Give it a name, select Linux as operating system, select Ubuntu
      (I am using 64bit Ubuntu on a 64bit Windows7 host)
    • Select RAM: for single CPU, 2GB is ok.
      (I am running with 8 core host with 12GB RAM,  can afford 7 cores for VM with 6GB RAM)
    •  Create hard disk, suggest to use fixed size, 40GB if you can afford.
    • Select number of cores, should always be less than on the host
    • Graphics: 64 MB, select 3d acceleration
    • Network: Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (NAT)
    • Under Harddisks, add secondary master: VBoxGuestAddtions.iso
    • There is possibility to share containers with your host.
      Name of folder has to match name in fstab. Example:
      • windows folder  W:Data
      • create folder: sudo mkdir /media/Data
      • for automatic mounting
        add to /etc/fstab:           Data  /media/Data vboxsf defaults 0 0
        

• Setup Ubuntu 10.10 / 11.04

  • start Ubuntu
  • for VM only: install Vbox additions: sudo -i, cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS... , run VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run for 64 bit or VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run for 32 bit, reboot
  • create 2 directories in your home directory:
    • mkdir cmtuser
    • mkdir LHCb_software
  • missing libraries and software package not included in ISO image, download using package installer
    • openafs-client, krb5, krb5-user
      • when installing enter cern.ch for afs cell
      • configuring kerberos, see http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/docs/kerberos-access.shtml
        essentially copy config file from lxplus to local machine, same place: /etc/krb5.conf
      • svn, cvs (not anymore needed for latest LHCb software), checksecurity (was not needed for Ubuntu 11.04)
      • procmail (needed to make cmt happy, contains lockfile
      • g++4.3 (g++4.4 for Ubuntu 11.04)
      • libglu1-mesa-dev
    • from lxplus copy and create symbolic links for (only for Ubuntu 10.10):
      • sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libtiff.so.3.8.2 /usr/lib64/libtiff.so.3
        sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libungif.so.4.1.3 /usr/lib64/libungif.so.4
        sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libgi /usr/lib64/libungif.so.4
    • for virtual box: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/VBoxOGL.so /usr/lib/libGL.so
  • install LHCb software
    • download install_project.py into LHCb_software
    • python install_project -b Panoramix 
  • in your login script, add
    • setenv CMTUSERCONTEXT /home/truf/LHCb_software/fixCompiler
      alias g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.3  (g++-4.4 for Ubuntu 11.04)
      source /home/truf/LHCb_software/LbLogin.csh -c x86_64-slc5-gcc43-opt
      setenv CVSROOT :ext:isscvs.cern.ch:/local/reps/lhcb (not needed if CVS is not used
  • create directory /home/truf/LHCb_software/fixCompiler, with file requirement containing:
    • macro_remove cpp_name "lcg-"
      macro_remove cpp_name "-$(gcc_config_version)"
      macro cpp_name "g++-4.3"  (g++-4.4 for Ubuntu 11.04
  • For Panoramix was necessary to cp ~/LHCb_software/lcg/external/Python/2.5/x86_64-slc5-gcc43-opt/lib/libpython2.5.so.1.0 ~/LHCb_software/lhcb/COMPAT/COMPAT_v1r8/CompatSys/x86_64-slc5-gcc43-opt/lib/
  • This should be all what is needed to get the LHCb environment.
    
    

• Access to Castor

  • use castorfs from Alexander Mazurov (LHCb Online), downloads: http://github.com/mazurov/castorfs/archives/master
    more info: https://lbtwiki.cern.ch/bin/view/Online/CastorFS
  • create directory castorfs in your home directory
  • mount castor using: castorfs -o castor_user=truf -o castor_uid=.... -o castor_gid=... /home/truf/castorfs
    where uid and gid are the ones of your userid on lxplus
  • files in castor are then seen and accessible using ls, cp, rm, ... ~/castorfs/cern.ch/user/t/truf/... or ~/castorfs/cern.ch/grid/lhcb/data/...
    copy does not work yet in virtual machine. According to Alexander, should work, under investigation
    
    

• Access to files on the Grid

  • use Dirac: install_project -b LHCbDirac
  • requires to magic environment variables to be set in your login script
    • setenv X509_CERT_DIR /afs/cern.ch/project/gd/LCG-share/current/external/etc/grid-security/certificates
      setenv X509_VOMS_DIR /afs/cern.ch/project/gd/LCG-share/current/external/etc/grid-security/vomsdir
  • for some reason, a file is missing in the distribution. Copy from lxplus:
    • cp  /afs/cern.ch/lhcb/sw/releases/DIRAC/DIRAC_v5r9p2/etc/dirac.cfg /home/truf/LHCb_software/lhcb/DIRAC/DIRAC_v5r9p2/etc/dirac.cfg
  • for installing Grid certificate, see https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCb/FAQ/Certificate
  • Files can then be copied using: dirac-dms-get-file
    

• Access to files on AFS

  • (don't forget about the right setup file to be copied from afs: /etc/krb5.conf
  • kinit username@CERN.CH
  • aklog cern.ch  # somehow needed to get write access