Installation and Configuration
In this section you will find step-by-step instructions for installing the CernVM-FS client software on your computer and to configure it to access the repository at /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu. To perform this one-time process you need super-user privileges.
After this process is successfully completed, an unprivileged user cvmfs is created in your computer and several configuration files are located under /etc/cvmfs. In addition, some executable files are installed (e.g. cvmfs_config, cvmfs_fsck, cvmfs_talk). The location of those executables depends on the operating system: on CentOS and Ubuntu they are located in /usr/bin and on macOS in /usr/local/bin.
The installation and configuration steps for each target platform are presented below.
CentOS
Step 1: Install the CernVM-FS client software
Add CERN’s RPM repository to your computer:
sudo yum install --quiet --assumeyes https://ecsft.cern.ch/dist/cvmfs/cvmfs-release/cvmfs-release-latest.noarch.rpm
Install the CernVM-FS client:
sudo yum install --quiet --assumeyes cvmfs
Hint
Manual installation on CentOS: If you prefer not to add CERN’s package repository to your computer or to choose a specific version of the software, you can directly download the desired version of the relevant package from the CERN package repository and manually install it using yum.
Step 2: Configure the LSST repository
Install the configuration package for repository /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu:
sudo rpm -U https://github.com/airnandez/sw-lsst-eu/releases/download/v0.7/cvmfs-config-lsst-0.7-1.noarch.rpm
Complete the CernVM-FS client configuration:
sudo /usr/bin/cvmfs_config setup
sudo service autofs restart
Step 3: Mount /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
On CentOS, the CernVM-FS client uses autofs for automatically mounting the file system when required and to unmount it when it is no longer needed. We recommend you configure the autofs service to start at boot time. Here is one way to do that:
sudo systemctl enable --now autofs
You can now proceed to Testing your Installation.
Ubuntu
Step 1: Install the CernVM-FS client software
Add CERN’s APT repository to your computer and install the CernVM-FS client:
sudo apt-get install lsb-release
curl -OL https://ecsft.cern.ch/dist/cvmfs/cvmfs-release/cvmfs-release-latest_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i cvmfs-release-latest_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
Install the CernVM-FS client:
sudo apt-get --yes install cvmfs
Hint
Manual installation on Ubuntu: If you prefer not to add CERN’s package repository to your computer or to choose a specific version of the software, you can directly download the desired version of the relevant package from the CERN package repository and manually install it using dpkg.
Step 2: Configure the LSST repository
Install the configuration package for repository /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu:
curl -OL https://github.com/airnandez/sw-lsst-eu/releases/download/v0.7/cvmfs-config-lsst_0.7_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i cvmfs-config-lsst_0.7_all.deb
Complete the CernVM-FS client configuration:
sudo /usr/bin/cvmfs_config setup
sudo service autofs restart
Step 3: Mount /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
On Ubuntu, the CernVM-FS client uses autofs for automatically mounting the file system when required and to unmount it when it is no longer needed. We recommend you configure the autofs service to start at boot time. Here is one way to do that:
sudo systemctl enable autofs.service
You can now proceed to Testing your Installation.
macOS
Step 1: Install the CernVM-FS client software
Step 1a: Download and install the latest stable release of FUSE for OS X. This is a dependency of the CernVM-FS client.
Important
In recent versions of macOS it is necessary to enable kernel extension for FUSE for OS X to work. At the end of the installation of FUSE for OS X you will be guided on how to modify the security settings of your computer to allow kernel extensions. This process implies starting your computing in Recovery mode and modify some settings in Start Security Utility. You will then need to reboot your computer in normal mode and explicitely allow this extension. This is a one time process.
Step 1b: Install the CernVM-FS client proper:
Warning
The instructions below are known to work on macOS 10.13 or later (i.e. High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey). If you are using an older version of macOS you may want to install an older version of the CernVM-FS client, for instance cvmfs-2.5.0.pkg.
curl -OL https://ecsft.cern.ch/dist/cvmfs/cvmfs-2.9.4/cvmfs-2.9.4.pkg
open cvmfs-2.9.4.pkg
The last window of the install process of this package gives some instructions on how to configure the client for accessing a repository. Please ignore them as we will do the configuration in the next step.
Important
Please make sure you restart your computer after installing this package. This is needed to make sure that the symbolic link /cvmfs is created and points to /Users/Shared/cvmfs.
Step 2: Configure the LSST repository
Install the configuration package for repository /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu:
curl -OL https://github.com/airnandez/sw-lsst-eu/releases/download/v0.7/sw-lsst-eu-cvmfs-config_0.7.pkg
open sw-lsst-eu-cvmfs-config_0.7.pkg
Complete the CernVM-FS client configuration:
sudo /usr/local/bin/cvmfs_config setup
Step 3: Mount /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
Create the mount directory:
sudo mkdir -p /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
On macOS you need to manually mount and unmount the file system when needed. To mount the file system do:
sudo mount -t cvmfs sw.lsst.eu /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
and to unmount it:
sudo umount /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
Testing your Installation
In the previous steps you installed the CernVM-FS client software and configured it to mount the LSST repository. At this point you can check your computer is correctly configured to access /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu by doing:
ls /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu
If you see the contents of that directory your computer is correctly configured and you are ready to start using the LSST software. See Usage of the Software under /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu for details.
You may want to check that in your computer you observe the same files and directories shown by CERN’s repository browser.
Important
Please note that on both Linux and macOS you must mount the file system on the directory /cvmfs/sw.lsst.eu because the LSST software is specifically built and packaged to be used under this path. The software won’t work when relocated under another path.
You may also want to tell the cvmfs client running on your computer to probe all the configured servers and sort them by geographical proximity:
sudo cvmfs_talk -i sw.lsst.eu host probe geo
To display how it ordered the servers do:
sudo cvmfs_talk -i sw.lsst.eu host info
Troubleshooting your Installation
In order for this distribution mechanism to work, your computer must be connected to the network, be able to establish network connections to the servers operated by CC-IN2P3 and replicated by other organisations (e.g. CERN) and download files via the HTTP protocol. To check that this is the case, please do:
git clone https://github.com/airnandez/sw-lsst-eu
cd sw-lsst-eu
bash tools/check.sh
You can tell everything is OK if there is no error message. Otherwise, the displayed error message may help you understanding what is wrong.
You may also want to check the status of the servers hosting the files of this software repository by visiting CERN’s replication monitor.
If this does not help solving your issue, please see How to Get Help and Provide Feedback.