Common HEP UNIX User Environment - 2 Installation modes


Overview

The HEPiX login scripts can be installed into 2 modes:

Indeed we considered two target situations:

The initial target of this package was the new systems as we wanted to provide a good and standardised environment to users for all the new services; but as a side effect, the deployment of this package affects the 'old' services as well. Although it is possible to enforce an environment each time a user starts a session on a new service, it is probably not wise to do on an existing service where a certain number of users are not used to this new environment. Thus, in the latter case, the environment should not be enforced and the user should have the choice whether to start the HEPiX login scripts or not.

How is it possible to enforce an environment? Simply by configuring a certain number of configuration files on a system. This does not work for all shells and this is why we provide a default template file for each shell which has to be used by the user. In these templates a central auxiliary file is called and checks if the HEPiX scripts have already been started and if not it runs them.

Thus depending on your case, the installation procedure will put some files on the system (in enforced mode) or not (in weak or non-enforced mode).

Once you have stated that you are in situation where you are dealing with a new or an existing service, you can install the package by following the installation in enforced or weak mode.

Recommendation

The default and the recommendation for installing this HEPiX package is to install the shells login scripts locally on the machines file systems and in enforced mode.


Installation in enforced mode

At CERN, if you are using the so-called 'SUE' system it can or it will be able to automatically install or update the HEPiX scripts for you (refer to [9]).

Using SUE, the HEPiX login scripts are defined in the cern profile and are installed by default.

If you are not using SUE, you must get the HEPiX package and then install it.


Installation in non-enforced or weak mode

The following explains how to install the HEPiX shells and X11 scripts in non-enforced or weak mode. You would do it on existing services where you don't want to migrate your users to HEPiX but you want to allow new users to use HEPiX without perturbating the service. This requires that your users will have to use the proper template files in their home directory to make sure they access the HEPiX package.

Using ASIS

At CERN, the recommended way is to use ASIS. If your machine is running ASISUpdate then, you have simply to specify to ASISUpdate (using epip) that you want to get the HEPiX scripts. You can even specify if you want to have a local copy or a set of symbolic links which points to AFS or NFS part of ASIS. Of course it is recommended to use a local copy as you are independent from network problems.

Machines which are still using make_asis (the ancestor of ASISUpdate) to get the HEPiX scripts remotely, should use ASISUpdate now.

Not using ASIS

If ASIS is not running on your system, you can follow the same steps as for the installation in enforced mode, only the last step will differ.

Warning - require user templates

In both cases (using ASIS or getting the files trough FTP) the users must get the recommended templates files if they want to use the HEPiX scripts. The so-called uco command is a tool which might help you and your users to get these templates.


Arnaud Taddei, 27-Jun-1996