LCSR User Group Minutes: June 22, 2001

Attendance: Doug Decarlo, Ken Harris, Uli Kremer, Rick Thomas, Donald Watrous

New meeting time:

Rick mentioned that since it was now Summer, schedules would be changing soon and it would make sense to decide on a new meeting time convenient for all. He said he would coordinate this through email.

Supported software list:

We reviewed the software list written up by Charles and emailed May 25, of installed packages, which if installed on a cluster should be coordinated with other clusters. All agreed it was a preliminary, not comprehensive list. Doug suggested a one-line entry could be added to describe the packages, more detail could be included for some entries (eg, latex2e), and some packages could be broken out of others (eg, JAI installed under some Java).

User contributed/maintained software:

While this is Thu Nguyen's request, he could not make this meeting, so Doug spoke in favor of the request while Rick and the staff presented problems and other things to be considered for this project:

How would such a project be organized?: Something along the lines of /usr/unsupported/username/package for each package, with directories /usr/unsupported/lib and /usr/unsupported/bin with soft links pointing into the package hierarchies.
How would this be managed?: Users would be responsible for the individual packages they put up.
Some groups may be involved in the maintenance of larger packages.
Access and coordination of the links from the lib and bin directories could be controlled by a faculty "maintainer."
Disk space and backups would be supplied by the LCSR-CF.
It would be mounted read-only everywhere except for a couple of designated machines needed for package maintainers to write files.
How large a filespace are we talking about?
A couple of 10's of GB.
What machines would have access to it?
Faculty, grad, ilab, and maybe undergrads.
Who will coordinate it?
In Thu's absence, it was generally agreed that he should do it.
How do we ensure this does not become an obligation of the LCSR staff?

We will take steps (perhaps even to the point of having people read and sign a statement) to ensure the users understand that the software is neither supported by nor the responsibility of the LCSR-CF staff.
The maintainer will vouch for those users who maintain packages and coordinate potential collisions in the common lib and bin directories.
The staff felt strongly that without a maintainer, the unsupported software would become the staff's responsibility. In response to this, all agreed that should the maintainer leave the University (or otherwise abdicate his duties as maintainer) and no replacement is available, the unsupported software repository "goes away."
How large a filespace are we talking about?: A couple of 10's of GB.
What machines would have access to it?: Faculty, grad, ilab, and maybe undergrads.
Who will coordinate it?: In Thu's absence, it was generally agreed that he should do it.
How do we ensure this does not become an obligation of the LCSR staff?: We will take steps (perhaps even to the point of having people read and sign a statement) to ensure the users understand that the software is neither supported by nor the responsibility of the LCSR-CF staff.
The maintainer will vouch for those users who maintain packages and coordinate potential collisions in the common lib and bin directories.
The staff felt strongly that without a maintainer, the unsupported software would become the staff's responsibility. In response to this, all agreed that should the maintainer leave the University (or otherwise abdicate his duties as maintainer) and no replacement is available, the unsupported software repository "goes away."

Miscellaneous: Kudos to Ken Harris for his work on the remotely bootable Linux machines for OS work. His response to two questions: He's currently working on the documentation and it will be ready for use in the Fall semester.

daw; 6/22/01