National
e-Science
Centre
Globus 2 / Level 2 Grid connection training course
e-Science Institute 16th-17th October 03
The idea of this course was to allow system administrators who are intending to install the Globus
Toolkit V2 to see the following. Initially most have little idea of what the Toolkit consists of and so
this is the first section covered. This then moves through the installation of the toolkit and its
basic configuration. The results at this stage are discussed and then from this the advanced
configuration of the toolkit with additions of security advisories and patches from the Globus
website are covered. This rests in systems that are then able to be allocated as externally
accessible resources without allowing exploitation of known security problems etc.
The course then moves onto the configuration changes necessary for connection to the UK eScience Grid with alterations of the Monitoring and Discovery Service config to allow central
reporting of status and resources available. The addition of the GITS test suite is then discussed
including installation and initial methods of testing and publishing of results. The final topic
covered is security covering not only the way that GSI is used with PKI and certificates but also
resource setup including firewalls.
The course allowed each student to work through on their own individual installation of the toolkit
and by the end of the course they had each machine installed with the latest version of Globus,
configured to allow connection to the Level-2 Grid.
I felt that the event went very well with each student being fully able afterwards to leave and start
setting up systems in their host institutions for inclusion in the UK e-Science Grid. The detail of
how to administer the system afterwards was also dealt with as well as diagnostics of problems
that appear both during setup and running of these systems. With this course being such a
success we are planning to hold another instance of this in January for registration is already
open and we would start to expect people from the newly created Centres of Excellence to
attend.
David Wallom
CCLRC