meeting Sept 3rd 2020

• date & time: Thu Sept 3rd 2020 - 2pm CEST (noon UTC)
  • (every first Thursday of the month)
• venue: (online, see mail for meeting link, or ask in Slack)
• agenda:
  1. Short introduction by new partners (if any)
  2. Progress report
     • Brainstorm meeting on Aug 19th
     • Filesystem layer
     • Compatibility layer
     • Software layer
  3. FENIX project proposals
  4. Next steps
  5. Q&A

Slides

• see https://github.com/EESSI/meetings/blob/master/meetings/EESSI_meeting_20200903.pdf

Short introduction by new people

• quick introductions by new people attending the meeting:
  • Kees de Jong (SURF, Netherlands)
  • Terje Kvernes (University of Oslo)

Progress in last month

Brainstorm meeting Aug 19th (Peter)

• notes available at https://github.com/EESSI/compatibility-layer/wiki/Brainstorm-meeting-(Aug-19th-2020)
• questions:
  • Caspar: which software packages go where (compat layer vs software layers)
    • security updates vs potential impact of installations in software layer (see problems with glibc in the past)
    • we need a good set of tests to evaluate impact of updates in compat layer on software layer
    • evaluate different approach in next iterations of pilot stack (more stuff in compat layer: binutils, X11, ...)
    • discussion to be continued...
  • Terje: how granular would you like to make the software layer w.r.t. CPU architectures?
    • for now only haswell in pilot repository
    • which additional CPU architectures will be supported largely depends on community: availability of build nodes, effort in fixing problems that may pop up for some installations, etc.

Filesystem layer (Bob)

• (see meeting slides for recent activities)
• questions:
  • Caspar: why does publishing require root permissions?
    • involves running some CVMFS server commands
    • exact reason is not entirely clear, CernVM-FS developers seems to be working on a solution for this
    • to be discussed in upcoming follow-up meeting with CernVM-FS developers (Fri Sept 18th)
    • this is a problematic requirement for build nodes, would be good if we can avoid this
  • Alan: container to access software stack will also come in useful in CI environments
    • yes, planning to leverage this for evaluating updates in compat layer
    • maybe even to fully automate process of adding software?
• suggestion by Kees: Ansible Molecule seems like something to look into for filesystem & compat layer
  • also provides a testing mechanism (test subdirectory)

Compatibility layer (Peter)

• (see meeting slides for recent activities)

Software layer (Kenneth)

• (see meeting slides for recent activities)
• first version of pilot software stack now available for testing, see https://eessi.github.io/docs/pilot/

FENIX project proposals

• both proposals rejected, mostly due to technical constraints
• new call for proposals coming up, deadline should be end of Sept
• revise proposals after getting in touch with system administrators?
• (more info in meeting slides)

Next steps

• lots of possibilities for testing & contributing now pilot software stack is available!
• (more info in meeting slides)

Q&A

• Peter: useful to get feedback from researchers already?
  • yes, see https://eessi.github.io/docs/pilot
• Kees: how to follow up on security updates in compatibility layer?
  • https://www.gentoo.org/support/security/
  • https://www.gentoo.org/support/security/stay-informed.html
  • https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GLSA (glsa-check)
  • May be worth looking into pakiti dashboard (see https://github.com/CESNET/pakiti-server)
• OpenQA test framework for evaluating stability of compat & software layer
  • may make sense to use both ReFrame and OpenQA for testing different aspects of the system?