NorduGrid client installation instructions

This is a short client installation description, for a more detailed instruction please consult the relevant section of the NorduGrid User Manual.

Option 1:

installing the standalone client locally (non-root)

Pre-requisite: you are being logged into a Linux 2.x machine (RH6.2 and above, Mandrake 8.x and above, Debian 3.0, SuSE are tested)

The standalone NorduGrid client contains the required Globus components and does all the necessary initial configuration and setup.

Installation procedure:

  1. get pre-compiled standalone binary tarball from the NorduGrid Downloads area, "NorduGrid Toolkit" section, "releases" or "tags" – "standalone" package, for your platform.
  2. put the tarball in a directory of your choice and execute tar xvzf nordugrid-standalone-x.y.z.tgz. This will create a new directory nordugrid-standalone-x.y.z, and the tarball can be safely removed
  3. enter the NorduGrid directory: execute cd nordugrid-standalone-x.y.z
  4. set up the environment by executing source setup.sh (or source setup.csh for C shells). Upon first execution, this will print a lot of informational output. Make sure there are no "error" or "failure" messages.

  5. IMPORTANT: NorduGrid software is based on the Globus toolkit. That means it uses PKI for authentication between client and services. Hence You need the credentials of that certificate authority (CA) which signed, or will sign, your personal certificate. Also, you need the credentials of all the CAs which certified the services You want to use. For example, if your personal certificate is issued by a German CA, and you are going to access files in France, using CPUs in Sweden, you need the German, French and NorduGrid CA credentials. Many such credentials are included in the NorduGrid standalone client installation, under nordugrid-standalone-x.y.z/share/certificates. Most of known certificates are also available at the NorduGrid Downloads area (look for "CA certificates"). For more information about certificates and related things read "Grid Certificate Mini How-to".

  6. request your NorduGrid certificate: grid-cert-request -int -ca or fire up your existing one (grid-proxy-init)
    • NB: NorduGrid standalone installation is distributed with most known CA certificates. However, you should always check whether your issuing authority certificate is present, as well as those which resources you intend to use. If such are absent, please take care to install missing certificates in nordugrid-standalone-x.y.z/share/certificates/.
      Normally, you can only request a NorduGrid certificate using this installation. Although it is technically possible to request a certificate from any other CA, it is strongly advised to follow that CA procedures and NOT to use the NorduGrid distribution for this.
  7. for a quick check, issue an "ngtest" command: e.g. ngtest -t 7. If the last line says "Job submitted with jobid ...", the test is successful.
  8. Have fun on the Grid!


Option 2:

installing the NorduGrid client from an RPM on a Linux 2.x box (no prior Globus installation)

you are going to install a pre-compiled Globus and a NorduGrid binary RPM. If you are not a system administrator, read our"RPM for everybody" guide.

Installation procedure:

  1. install the Globus (preferably the latest release) onto your system by getting and installing the following RPMs in the given order:
    1. Globus Packaging Toolkit
    2. Globus Toolkit 2
    3. Globus configuration files
    To do this, go to the NorduGrid Downloads area and in "External software" choose "globus", "globus-config" and "gpt".
  2. get and install the NorduGrid client binary RPM for your system (nordugrid-client-x.y.z-1.i386.rpm). It is available via the NorduGrid Downloads area, "NorduGrid Toolkit" section, "releases" or "tags" – "client" link.
  3. get and install the necessary Certificate Authority (CA) RPMs from the NorduGrid Downloads area, "CA certificates" section.

    You need the credentials of that certificate authority (CA) which signed or will sign your personal certificate. Also, you need the credentials of all the CAs which certified the services You want to use. For example, if your personal certificate is issued by a German CA, and you are going to access files in France, using CPUs in Sweden, you need the German, French and NorduGrid CA credentials.

  4. login into your user account (or, if you are being logged in, type source /etc/profile.d/globus.sh and source /etc/profile.d/nordugrid.sh)
  5. If you have no personal certificate, you can request one from the NorduGrid. To do this, download and install the configuration package from the NorduGrid Downloads area, "CA certificates" section, "certrequest-config". After doing this, request the certificate with grid-cert-request -int ca
  6. fire up your certificate with grid-proxy-init
  7. for a quick check, issue an "ngtest" command: e.g. ngtest -t 7. If the last line says "Job submitted with jobid ...", the test is successful.
  8. Have fun on the Grid!


Option 3:

installing the NorduGrid client as root on your Linux 2.x box, on top of an existing Globus installation

You should preferably have the latest Globus Toolkit 2 (TM) version on your machine. The NorduGrid middleware has to be re-built against this Globus installation.

Build and installation procedure:

  1. check that the variables GLOBUS_LOCATION, GPT_LOCATION are set according to your Globus installation
  2. get from the NorduGrid Downloads area, "NorduGrid Toolkit" section, "releases" or "tags" – "source" the NorduGrid source RPM nordugrid-x.y.z-1.src.rpm and rebuild it:
    rpm --rebuild nordugrid-x.y.z-1.src.rpm
    Note: this will rebuild the entire NorduGrid middleware, not only the client.
  3. install the created binary RPMs (for a client, you only need the nordugrid-client RPM)
  4. install the CA packages and optionally request a certificate by following the procedure described above.
  5. alternatively, you can get a tarball nordugrid-x.y.z.tar.gz, and follow the usual procedure:
    cat INSTALL
    tar -xvzf nordugrid-x.y.z.tar.gz
    cd nordugrid-x.y.z
    ./configure
    make
    make install
    WARNING: this will install the entire NorduGrid suite, not only the client.
  6. for a quick check, issue an "ngtest" command: e.g. ngtest -t 7. If the last line says "Job submitted with jobid ...", the test is successful.
  7. Have fun on the Grid!