More on New Build Process

Here are the Unix commands to use the revised build:

svn co https://ogce.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ogce/ogce-portal-only

cd ogce-portal-only

(Edit properties section of ogce-portal-only/pom.xml as necessary).

tar -zxf maven-2.0.7-bin.tar.gz

export PATH=`pwd`/maven-2.0.7/bin/:$PATH

mvn clean install

The portal stuff is installed under portal_deploy/apache-5.5.12. Use the little convenient scripts tomcat-startup.sh and tomcat-shutdown.sh to start and stop the server.

This needs to be tested on Windows.

New Build Process

The old shell script+Ant+Maven1+Maven2 build process is being replaced with a clean Maven 2 build. This is currently in SVN and will be included in the next release.

The base directory structure is now

• portal_deploy: this contains the apache server and is location of the portal after deployment.
  
• global-config: this contains Maven poms for deploying the Java COG jars into tomcat's shared/lib.
  
• portlets: this contains the portlets. Each portlet is in a separate directory.
  
• certificates: this installs the certificates into $HOME/.globus/certificates
  
• containers: this includes various JSR 168 containers. For now, this only contains Gridsphere 2.1.5 but alternative versions of Gridsphere, Sakai, et al will be placed here.
  
• lnf_portal: this directory includes container specific goals for customizing the look and feel of the logo. This includes logos, style sheets, etc.

The entire portal is installed with the command

mvn install

The portal can be cleaned completely with

mvn clean

To update an existing deployment (for example, reinstalling the filetransfer portlet), use the following command:

mvn clean install -f portlets/filetransfer/pom.xml

Re-compiling individual portlets

0. Set your $MAVEN_HOME variable, if necessary:

export MAVEN_HOME=$HOME/ogce2-x.y/third_party_tools/maven-1.0.2

1. cd to ogce2-x.y/ogce-portal

2. Then run this command below to recompile the :

$HOME/ogce2-x.y/third_party_tools/maven-1.0.2/bin/maven gp:deploy-portlet -Dportlet.name=filetransfer -Denv.CATALINA_HOME=../portal_deploy/apache-tomcat-5.5.12

The value for -Dportlet-name=... should be the specific subdirectory name of ogce-portal/portlets (ie use -Dportlet-name=proxymanager-portlet to compile the proxy manager.

GTLAB 1.0 Beta Available

Grid Tag Libraries and Beans (GTLAB) version 1.0-Beta is available for portlet development. These are extensions to JSF to simplify the development of complicated Grid portlets for invoking science applications.

http://grids.ucs.indiana.edu/users/manacar/GTLAB-website/

OGCE2 2.1 Available for Download

We are pleased to announce the latest update to the OGCE Grid Portal release. Release 2.1 updates version 2.0.4 with support for Condor-G portlets and various minor bug and build system fixes. Downloads are available from http://www.collab-ogce.org/ogce2/

OGCE grid portlets include support for Globus GRAM and WS-GRAM, GridFTP, SRB, MyProxy, PURSe, Condor, GPIR information services, and Sakai collaboration services.

Using Condor-G Portlets

The Condor-G portlet in the next OGCE release requires a few external steps.

1. You must install condor (version 6.8), globus, and the OGCE portal server on the same host computer.
2. You must enable Condor birdbath, as documented on the OGCE web site, http://www.collab-ogce.org/ogce2/condor-job-submission/configuration.html.
3. You must ensure that Condor-G is enabled in your condor installation. This is probably the case, but see instructions at http://communitygrids.blogspot.com/2006/08/about-condor.html.
4. You must construct and publish classads for the Grid resources you want to use. The remainder of this post provides basic instructions.
   

Condor-G uses Condor to act as a client to Globus services. Normally, Condor daemons collect information from the entire condor flock and automatically construct Classads that are used to matchmake your job request to a particular machine. Since Globus services are not part of the flock, you must manually add these to condor on your portal server.

Here is a sample classad for condor-g:

MyType = "Machine"
TargetType = "Job"
Name = "condorTest05"
Machine = "condorTest05"
gatekeeper_url = "login-co.ncsa.teragrid.org/jobmanager"
UpdatesSequenced = 9
CurMatches = 0
Requirements = TARGET.JobUniverse == 9
Rank = 0.000000
CurrentRank = 0.000000
OpSys = "LINUX"
Arch = "INTEL"
State = "Unclaimed"
Activity = "Idle"
LoadAvg = 0.000000
Memory = 2048
WantAdRevaluate = True
StartdIpAddr = "129.79.216.5"

Replace parameters above as appropriate. The StartdIpAddr should be the IP of your portal+condor-g host machine. All other parameters describe the Globus host machine, login-co.ncsa.teragrid.org. Place these values in a file, myCondorClassAd.txt, and then publish this using the command line

[shell-prompt> condor_advertise UPDATE_STARTD_AD myCondorClassAd.txt

This classad will expire in a few minutes, so you will need to execute the above command using a cron script. Rumor has it that better tools for supporting Globus-derived classads exist.

GFac: Wrapping Science Applications as Grid Services

The OGCE is pleased to announce the public release of the Generic Application Service Factory (a.k.a., GFac). For documentation, see

http://www.extreme.indiana.edu/gfac/userguide.html

The code can be downloaded from

http://www.extreme.indiana.edu/gfac/dist/

WS-GRAM Job Submission Configuration

You must provide the port number (typically 8443) for the WS-GRAM service location in your grid.installation.properties. A valid entry will be formatted like so:

firsthost.testinggrid.com:8443


If you omit the port number for a WS-GRAM service, the service invocation will work the first time only and fail on all subsequent invocations. The error message will be or will contain

Error: org.globus.cog.abstraction.impl.common.task.TaskSubmissionException:
Cannot submit job: ; nested exception is: java.net.ConnectException:
Connection refused

Pom.xml Problem in Condor Portlet

The condor job submission portlet contains a call to an obsolete plugin repository that will cause compilation errors of this portlet. To solve in release version 2.0.4, comment out the plugin section near the top of the ogce2-2.0/ogce-portal/portlets/condor-job-submission2/pom.xml as shown.



<build>
<finalName>condor-job-submission2</finalName>
<plugins>
<!--
<plugin>
<groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jetty6-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<scanIntervalSeconds>10</scanIntervalSeconds>
</configuration>
</plugin>
-->
</plugins>
</build>

Sakai JSR 168 Portlet Support

Sakai support for JSR 168 is in the Sakai SVN trunk. For notes on checking it out, compiling, and using it, see http://communitygrids.blogspot.com/2007/03/sakai-jsr-168-tests.html. This will be officially part of the Sakai 2.4 release.

Sakai uses Pluto 1.1 for portlet support. OGCE grid portlet support in Sakai is currently being tested.

See http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr-chuck/420092745/ for a Google Map portlet photo (built with JSF and using the Apache JSF portlet bridge).

OGF 19 Forum Slides

OGCE presentation slides from the Open Grid Forum 19's Software Forum are available below.

• Introduction and Overview Slides by Marlon Pierce (PPT).
  


• Wrapping Scientific Applications as Web Services by Gopi Kandaswamy (PPTX). A PDF version of this is available here.
  

Correction to tar download of version 2.0.4

The file

ogce2-2.0/ogce-portal/portlets/condor-job-submission/project.properties

has a typo that will cause the install script to fail if you do not also install the Maven jar repository. This has been corrected, but we will not immediately increment the version to 2.0.5.

OGCE Maven 1 and 2 Repository URLs

Here are the URLs for OGCE's Maven 1 and Maven 2 repositories:

• Maven 1: http://www.collab-ogce.org/maven/.
• Maven 2: http://www.collab-ogce.org/maven2/.

Interactive Job Submission and GT4

To use the job submission portlet to connect to WS-GRAM, you need to run the portal server on a host machine with a real IP address and verify that $HOME/.globus/cog.properties is set correctly. This can be done by editing ogce2-2.0/projectproperties before building or by hand after the build. This is described in more detail on the OGCE web site's installation instructions.

If this cog.property is not set correctly, you will get the error

org.globus.cog.abstraction.impl.common.task.TaskSubmissionException: Cannot
submit job: No client transport named 'https' found!

GCE 06 Papers and Presentations Available

GCE 06 papers and presentations are available for download from http://www.cogkit.org/GCE06/GCE06/Program.html.

OGCE SourceForge SVN

The old CVS repository has been replaced with SVN, hosted by SourceForge for simplicity.

The SVN repository may be browsed at http://ogce.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ogce/.

SVN clients can use the URL https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ogce/. This is divided into the usual trunk, tag, and branches subdirectories. The current 2.0.4 version is available under the tag

To check out the trunk (current) version, use the command "svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ogce/trunk ogce-trunk". This will put the code in a local directory called ogce-trunk.

Write permission is currently only available for project members.

The nominal OGCE SourceForge project page is here. However, we are not currently using other SourceForge features (particularly mailing lists), although this may
change. For mailing list and bugzilla info, see http://www.collab-ogce.org/ogce2/contact.html.

GCE 06 Photos

Photos of the GCE 06 Workshop in Tampa are available from
http://156.56.94.167/~kihuffma/photos/GCE06/index.html, courtesy of Kia Huffman.

GridFTP Portlet Download Bugs and Workarounds

• The GridFTP portlet does not have the "emptySessionPath" variable set for the SSL/HTTPS connector in the server.xml file. This will cause downloads to fail. The solution is simple and is described in detail in the "Post-Installation Steps" section of http://www.collab-ogce.org/nmi/ogce2-docs/installing.html. You just need to add the attribute emptySessionPath="true" to the HTTPS connector. This has been corrected in the CVS.



• Firefox 2 will attempt to open downloaded files (which use target="_blank") in new tabs rather than in new windows. You will get a popup prompt asking you to save the file, but the "save" button will be disabled. To work around this, right click file download link.



• TeraGrid GridFTP servers that are listed in the ogce2-2.0.4 download's grid.installation.properties default values are using an older version of GridFTP. This has no effect on remote file browsing but will cause downloads to fail. Select "GT 3.2 or earlier" instead of the default "GT4" in the selection box when connecting to these servers.
  
  

OGCE Portal 2.0.4 Available

The OGCE portal release 2.0.4 is available from http://www.collab-ogce.org/ogce2/ogce2-2.0-download.html. Prominent updates include

• OGCE is now configured and tested to work with sample TeraGrid GRAM, GridFTP, and GPIR services out of the box. You can still also use OGCE Grid portlets with your own Globus installation.


• Condor portlets completely rewritten to work with Condor 6.8.


• PURSe Portlets added to the main build process.


• PBS submission bug fixed in the batch job submission portlet


• Gridsphere version updated to 2.1.5. This is our preferred version for stability and scalability.

GCE06 Program Announced

The program for GCE06 in Tampa is available from http://www.cogkit.org/GCE06/GCE06/Program.html.