Grid-Ireland

Using Grid-Ireland

Introduction
Command Line (on a UI)
Globus
gLite
- User Guide
- Useful Links

Introduction

You will also need to apply for a Grid certificate. For more information see the guide to getting a Grid-Ireland User Certificate. You will also need to register with one of the Virtual Organizations. All Grid-Ireland users must accept the Grid-Ireland and Virtual Organization usage rules.

Grid-Ireland currently provides Globus and gLite software for Grid computing.

There are two generic ways to use the grid: through a web portal or via the command line.

Web Portal

The WS-P-Grade web portal is under development as part of the SCI-BUS project and will be re-launched soon!

The WS P-Grade Portal allows you to develop, execute and monitor workflows and workflow based parameter studies from a browser on your own desktop.

Command Line (on a UI)

A user may interact with the Grid-Ireland middleware via the command line on a grid UI.

Logging On to the UI

In order to make use of Grid-Ireland via the cmdline you will need an account on a Grid User Interface (UI) machine. A UI is installed at each Grid-Ireland site. If you would like an account please contact the Grid-Ireland helpdesk (help at grid.ie) and we will check if you are eligible.

Once you have a UI account, you will need to log on to the Grid UI at your site with the username that has been assigned to you:

ssh <username>@gridui.<DNS domain>

After logging in, you must get a proxy credential which allows authentication with grid services. Note: these instructions assume you have already got a grid certificate and have installed successfully on the UI according to the instructions.

To use the Grid you must contact the VO membership service to get a credential that verifies your membership of the VO. Such a VOMS proxy is created with the voms-proxy-init command. In the following example, the --voms argument is the alias of the VO that you belong to. The aliases for Grid-Ireland VOs are listed here.

$ voms-proxy-init --voms test
Your identity: /C=IE/O=Grid-Ireland/OU=grid.ie/L=RA-TCD/CN=Grid User
Enter GRID pass phrase for this identity:
Creating temporary proxy ............................................. Done
/C=IE/O=Grid-Ireland/OU=cs.tcd.ie/L=RA-TCD/CN=host/cagraidsvr10.cs.tcd.ie
/C=IE/O=Grid-Ireland/CN=Grid-Ireland Certification Authority
Creating proxy ............................. Done

Globus Middleware

Globus provides a number of useful commands that act in the same way as Operating System commands. For example, to run /echo/bin "hello" on host gridigate.cs.tcd.ie, enter:

globus-job-run gridgate.cs.tcd.ie:2119/jobmanager-fork /bin/echo "hello"

gridgate should respond with hello.

gLite Middleware

The European Middleware Initiative develops and maintains the grid software that is used on Grid-Ireland. The gLite software provides computing and storage management facilities to cater for large scale compute- and data-intensive tasks.