SAGE-WN distribution for cluster worker nodes

28 views
Skip to first unread message

Serge A. Salamanka

unread,
May 16, 2009, 4:56:17 PM5/16/09
to sage-...@googlegroups.com
Hello,

1) I need to create a special distribution of SAGE for installation on
worker nodes of a large cluster.
It should be disabled of any functionality to start web-services.
It can only be used to compute sage-notebooks with the help of Sage
python library and other mathematics software included in Sage.

2) Probably there could also be a possibility to configure Sage-WN (
Sage installation on cluster worker node ) for a master server to accept
jobs through dsage submition and thus leave the twisted networking in place.

3) the next step is to create an rpm package for Sage-WN distribution of
Sage.

These tasks are the first steps to gridification of Sage.

I wonder if anyone could suggest the ways to accomplish these tasks
easily and correctly.

#Serge

Serge A. Salamanka

unread,
May 19, 2009, 6:47:50 AM5/19/09
to sage-...@googlegroups.com
If no objection I'll post here for possible comments and guidelines.

First thing that I'm trying to do is to make a distribution of SAGE that
could be recommended for installation on worker nodes of large clusters
in supercomputing centers.
After BG-II project meeting it was decided to recommend Sage as a
service for gLite-sites.
So the need is to produce a safe package for WNs.
Safe means secure and safe to install in the cluster infrastructure.

Mainly I want to block starting of notebook server and wiki.
Download of the sage scripts and objects from the SAGEMath Server is to
be left in place.

Could it be enough just to exclude twisted package from the base
distribution ?
Any other packages that a worker node doesn't need ?

I would appreciate a comment on this issue but will be also
investigating it myself.

#Serge

Serge A. Salamanka пишет:

William Stein

unread,
May 19, 2009, 1:11:28 PM5/19/09
to sage-...@googlegroups.com
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:47 AM, Serge A. Salamanka <sals...@tut.by> wrote:
>
> If no objection I'll post here for possible comments and guidelines.
>
> First thing that I'm trying to do is to make a distribution of SAGE that
> could be recommended for installation on worker nodes of large clusters
> in supercomputing centers.
> After BG-II project meeting it was decided to recommend Sage as a
> service for gLite-sites.
> So the need is to produce a safe package for WNs.
> Safe means secure and safe to install in the cluster infrastructure.

I think it is completely impossible to make Sage "secure and safe to
install". What
do you even mean by "secure and safe"?

William
--
William Stein
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org

Serge A. Salamanka

unread,
May 20, 2009, 12:31:03 PM5/20/09
to sage-...@googlegroups.com

William Stein пишет:


> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:47 AM, Serge A. Salamanka <sals...@tut.by> wrote:
>> If no objection I'll post here for possible comments and guidelines.
>>
>> First thing that I'm trying to do is to make a distribution of SAGE that
>> could be recommended for installation on worker nodes of large clusters
>> in supercomputing centers.
>> After BG-II project meeting it was decided to recommend Sage as a
>> service for gLite-sites.
>> So the need is to produce a safe package for WNs.
>> Safe means secure and safe to install in the cluster infrastructure.
>
> I think it is completely impossible to make Sage "secure and safe to
> install". What
> do you even mean by "secure and safe"?
>
> William
>

I mean that there should be no possibility to access the WN from outside
using some unknown to me features of twisted.
It is better to strip off the software from unnecessary functionality.
The worker node should (in my view) be able to execute sage and python
scripts. Everything else is not needed.

In the term of "safe" I put stability of use by many users in the system
which is not going to stall the machine.

So, as it comes out of your question there is no point to do anything
with Sage to install it on worker nodes. Might be the only thing is to
pack it into rpm for Scientific Linux.

#Serge

Jason Grout

unread,
May 20, 2009, 1:56:02 PM5/20/09
to sage-...@googlegroups.com
Disclaimer: I may not know what I'm talking about here :).

Serge A. Salamanka wrote:
>
>
> William Stein пишет:
>> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:47 AM, Serge A. Salamanka <sals...@tut.by> wrote:
>>> If no objection I'll post here for possible comments and guidelines.
>>>
>>> First thing that I'm trying to do is to make a distribution of SAGE that
>>> could be recommended for installation on worker nodes of large clusters
>>> in supercomputing centers.
>>> After BG-II project meeting it was decided to recommend Sage as a
>>> service for gLite-sites.
>>> So the need is to produce a safe package for WNs.
>>> Safe means secure and safe to install in the cluster infrastructure.
>> I think it is completely impossible to make Sage "secure and safe to
>> install". What
>> do you even mean by "secure and safe"?
>>
>> William
>>
>
> I mean that there should be no possibility to access the WN from outside
> using some unknown to me features of twisted.

Wouldn't it be better to do a firewall and network filtering? Then you
aren't depending on a program playing nice.

> It is better to strip off the software from unnecessary functionality.
> The worker node should (in my view) be able to execute sage and python
> scripts. Everything else is not needed.
>
> In the term of "safe" I put stability of use by many users in the system
> which is not going to stall the machine.


Well, again, you can do a fork bomb in most languages and stall a
machine. Seems like it'd be better to handle that problem via resource
limits.


> So, as it comes out of your question there is no point to do anything
> with Sage to install it on worker nodes. Might be the only thing is to
> pack it into rpm for Scientific Linux.

Good point.

Jason

--
Jason Grout

Serge A. Salamanka

unread,
May 22, 2009, 2:09:16 PM5/22/09
to sage-...@googlegroups.com
Well, everything you said is true.
But I need to recommend Sage for installation to other people.

I guess this is not very important at the first stage. So I'll proceed
with Ganga and DIANE.

Several admins from BalticGrid didn't object compiling Sage for
installations, so an rpm package may not be needed too.

Thank you for comments.
It may have been a bad idea to cut Sage into pieces.
I found SPD. A great thing that could be worked on.

So for now there is nothing to say more in this topic.

#Serge

Jason Grout пишет:

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages