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- DNS
- What DNS domain will these hosts be in? nrao.edu? remote-institution.site? other?
- Will this vary depending on site?
- DHCP
- SMTP
- NTP or chrony
- NFS
- LDAP? How do we handle accounts? I think we will want accounts on at least the head node. The execution nodes could run everything as nobody or as real users. If we want real users on the execute hosts then we should use a directory service which should probably be LDAP. No sense in teaching folks how to use NIS anymore.
- remote institution accounts only?
- ssh
- rsync (nraorsync_plugin.py)?
- NAT so the nodes can download/upload data?
- TFTP (for OSes and switch)
- condor (port 9618) https://htcondor-wiki.cs.wisc.edu/index.cgi/wiki?p=HowToMixFirewallsAndHtCondor
- ganglia
- nagios
- ganglia
- Ganglia hasn't been updated since 2015 so perhaps it is time to look for something else.
- Prometheus/Graphana
- Zabbix
Operating System
- Must support CASA
- Will need a patching/updating mechanism
- How to boot diskless OS images
- I am not finding any new sexy software packages to automate PXE+DHCP+TFTP+NFS, so we will keep doing it the way we have been for years https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/managing_storage_devices/setting-up-a-remote-diskless-system_managing-storage-devices
- One OS image for both our use and remote institution use, or multiple OS images?
- Use containers (docker, singularity/apptainer, kubernetes, mesos, etc)?
- Ask Greg at CHTC what they use
- They use disked OSes and puppet to maintain it
- What Linux distrobution to use?
- Can we use Red Hat with our current license? I have looked in JDE and I can't find a recent subscription. Need to ask David.
- We have a 1,000 FTE license with up to 20,000 installations allowed. But since we are either selling the equipment to the institution or asking them to buy it themselves, at least with UPRM, I don't see how we can use our RHEL license legally. Asking each institution to aquire an RHEL license sounds like a recepie for failure so I think open source OS is the answer.
- Should we buy Red Hat licenses like we did for USNO?
- USNO is between $10K and $15K per year for 81 licensed nodes. This may not be an EDU license.
- NRAO used to have a 1,000 host license for Red Hat but I don't know what they have now.
- I don't want to maintain licenses for up to 10 differenct installs. I don't think the institutions will want to purchase and maintain a license.
- Do we even want to use Red Hat?
- Alternatives would be Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux or CentoOS Stream
- Some sites will own their equipment like UPR-M. Probably most sites the equipment will be owned by NRAO.
- Can we use Red Hat with our current license? I have looked in JDE and I can't find a recent subscription. Need to ask David.
- What version do we use RHEL7 or RHEL8 or RHEL9? Remember CASA needs to support it.
- What OSes is CASA is verified against? I am pretty sure RHEL but what about CentOS or Rocky or ALMA, etc?.
- What version of CASA does VLASS need?
- The cost of RHEL is pretty small compared to the hardware.
- UPRM has their own money but the other institutions will either get a grant or money from us so we can say what OS they use and pay for.
- Should pull in Matthew or Schlake on this decision.
- Should we use Ansible for deployments?
- 2022-10-21 krowe: jkern talked to business office and they prefer that AUI gives the money to Morgan State and Morgan State buys the equipment. So Morgan State will own it. NRAO can stipulate you will only get the money if you buy what we recommend.
- 2022-10-24 krowe: CASA is verified against RHEL8. CentOS Stream 8 is a constantly moving target. There is no CentOS Stream 8.1 or 8.2 it is always the cutting edge of RHEL. I don't like that. I would much rather have version numbers that I can compare to RHEL. So that is a vote against CentOS Stream and for Rocky or Alma. I just checked Scientific Linux (maintinaed by Fermilab and CERN) and they are moving to CentOS Stream8. So there will not be a Scientific Linux 8.
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