OS installation, configuration and setup for servers supporting FLAO software

NOTE: This page is obsolete. Last revision of this info is in CentOS67Installation.

Installation sequence on CentOS 6.x/7.x (64 bit)

See CentOS67Installation

Installing Linux OS distribution (as of today: CentOS 5.4)

• Install CentOS 5 from DVD distribution and fully update.

• Install RPMForge package repository (but see updated instructions at: http://rpmrepo.org/RPMforge/Using)

wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm
rpm -Uhv rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm

• Install the EPEL repository:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm

*Note:* Verify the CentOS version on /etc/redhat-releasei (In the example above it is 5.3. If needed, modify the package name).

• Install the priorities package:

  yum install yum-priorities

• Make sure that yum-priorities is enabled by editing the /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/priorities.conf file, and ensuring that it contains the following lines:

[main]
enabled=1

• Edit the .repo files in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and set up priorities by adding the line:

priority=N

to every repository entry. In particular in the file CentOS-Base.reposet "priority=1" for the packages:

[base] [addons] [updates] [extras] 

and set "priority=2" for the packages

[centosplus] [contrib] 

and in the file rpmforge.reposet "priority=11" for the package

[rpmforge]

and in the file epel.repo

[epel] [epel-debuginfo] [epel-source]

• Now simply install everything using the file yumpack.txt:

yum -y install `cat yumpack.txt`

 Add the two following lines in the /etc/sudoers file with the command /usr/sbin/visudo:

Defaults    env_reset
Defaults    env_keep = "COLORS DISPLAY HOSTNAME HISTSIZE INPUTRC KDEDIR LS_COLORS hagen@jauu.net PS1 PS2 QTDIR USERNAME PWD LBTCONF_PATH LANG L
C_ADDRESS LC_CTYPE LC_COLLATE LC_IDENTIFICATION LC_MEASUREMENT LC_MESSAGES LC_MONETARY LC_NAME LC_NUMERIC LC_PAPER LC_TELEPHONE LC_TIME LC_ALL
LANGUAGE LINGUA  _XKB_CHARSET XAUTHORITYi ADOPT_ROOT ADOPT_SOURCE ADOPT_LOG ADOPT_IDL_SOURCE"

Prerequisite packages

• pyhton development files
• qt3 development files
• qwt library (installed from source, see below)
• pyqt bindings
• pyfits library
• python-uuid Support for uuid generation (used by prepare/deploy procedures)
• libXpm-devel
• libmotif-devel
• numpy python package
• boost libraries (modules: base, serialzation, thread)
• gmp library development files
• lrzsz sxmodem support program
• libreadline-devel: development files for readline
• IDL with proper license (tested version 6.3)
• dpu documentation package
• kde-devel

Installation of required packages on CentOS 4

The list of all the packages installed on a i386 PC with a working Supervisor is in the attached file yumlist.txt

How to protect CentOS 4 from 3rd part repositories

yum install yum-plugin-priorities 

How to install RPMForge repository on CentOS 4

Download the rpmforge-release package.

Choose one of the two links below, depending on your architecture. If you are unsure of which one to use you can check your architecture with the command uname -i

i386i: http://dag.wieers.com/packages/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el4.rf.i386.rpm

Install DAG's GPG key

rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

Verify the package you have downloaded

rpm -K rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el4.rf.*.rpm

Install the package

rpm -i rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el4.rf.*.rpm

This will add a yum repository config file and import the appropriate GPG keys. At this point, you can set the priority of the RPMForge repository, and also of the CentOS repositories if you have not done so yet.

Add a line containing

priority=10

to /etc/yum.repos.d/rpmforge.repo

Test with this command: yum check-update

It should output these two lines:

 Loading "priorities" plugin ... 

285 packages excluded due to repository priority protections

An example command is as follows:

sudo yum install build-essential python-devel qt3 lqt3-devel python-qt-dev python-qt3 boost boost-devel libreadline5-dev libgmp3-dev python-numarray python-pyfits libXpm-dev libmotif-dev
sudo ln -s /usr/include/python2.5 /usr/include/python
cvs checkout Supervisor
cd Supervisor
make
sudo make install

Installing numarray

yum install python-numarray

Installation of required packages on ubuntu

These packages are enough for the compilation (maybe they are more than the necessary ones):

sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev libqt3-mt libqt3-mt-dev python-qt-dev python-qt3 python-uuid libboost-dev libboost-serialization-dev libboost-thread-dev libreadline5-dev libgmp3-dev python-numarray python-pyfits libXpm-dev libmotif-dev
sudo ln -s /usr/include/python2.5 /usr/include/python
cvs checkout Supervisor
cd Supervisor
make
sudo make install

Installing QWT

QWT is installed from the source package stored in the contribdirectory of the CVS repository. Installation is made with the usual procedure for QT based programs:

qmake
make
install

Network configuration

• Put in /etc/hosts the addresses of the devices as specified in IpNumbers.

• Firewall
  The firewall configuration must allow network packets from the BCU's. The easiest way is to declare the ethernet interface of the BCU subnet as trusted.

Non standard issues

Kernel parameters

In order to full configure the Adaptive Secondary it's needed to expand (if not) the shared memory size provided by the Operating System.

To check if there is enough shared memory you can write (from root):

# sysctl -a | grep shm

and look for the lines:

kernel.shmall = 131072
kernel.shmmax = 536870912

If you have values for kernel.shmall and kernel.shmmax have lower values, please change /etc/rc.d/rc.localfile adding the two lines:

sysctl -w kernel.shmall=131072
sysctl -w kernel.shmmax=536870912

This will set the values at reboot. You may also give the commands at a command propmpt for immediate effect.

Partitioning

• It is important to reserve a partition for log files: so that even though the log partition is filled up, the OS can go on working.

IDL related issues.

Installing IDL

IDL installation is done in the usual way. All the IDL code is tested against IDL 7.1.

Note 1: the IDL code is not compatible with IDL 8.0

Note 2: It is recommended to perform a standard local installation (so thet IDL71 is installed on directory: /usr/local/itt. This avoids many pitfalls in the following installation of required libraries and in the PATH used at run time.

4D and IDL

The 4D Interferometer control program uses Pyro to sends command. Pyro version 3.6 has been tested. To install it the package must be untarred on any directory and directions found in the manual must be followed (the usual python setup.py install procedure is all you need to do).

To use the 4D PhaseCam 4020 with the IDL wrapper:

• Add the PYRO_CONFIG_FILE environment variable (i.e equals to $(ADOPT_ROOT)/conf/left/Pyro_Client.conf)
• Set the variable PY_VER in Makefile.gen

Setup for compilation of IDL wrappers

• A file name idl.conf must be put in /etc/ld.so.conf.d, with the following line:
  

  /usr/local/itt/idl71/bin/bin.linux.x86/

  
  Then issue (as root) the command ldconfig (it will be reissued at each boot)

Environment variables

• ADOPT_ROOT: root of installation directories (e.g.: /usr/local/adopt)
• ADOPT_SOURCE: root of source directories (e.g.: /home/labot/AO2.0/Supervisor)
• ADOPT_LOG: logging directory (/tmp if not specified)
• QTDIR: QT development directory (e.g.: /usr/share/qt3)
• PYTHONPATH: not needed, clear it.
• IDLDIR: IDL basedir (e.g.: /usr/local/itt/idl)
• LD_LIBRARY_PATH: must contain the path to idl libraries (typically: /usr/local/itt/idl70/bin/bin.linux.x86)
• In addition /usr/include/python directory must point to the current Python development includes (usually a link will be made).

Daemons

See AdOptProcesses.

Miscellaneous

How to get rid of annoying warning in boost libraries

Compiler warns:

/usr/include/boost/serialization/shared_ptr.hpp:201: warning: unused parameter "file_version"

Solution: comment out the variable name, without changing the interface

inline void load( Archive & ar, boost::shared_ptr &t, const unsigned int /*file_version*/ ){ 

Note on sudo

Because you need sudo when doing any make install command, remember that on some distributions it is configured so that it will cancel most environmet variables, including ADOPT_ROOT and ADOPT_SOURCE, so that the make install command will fail.

You must edit /etc/sudoersand add the two above variables to the line:

Defaults env_keep = " ........   ADOPT_ROOT ADOPT_SOURCE ADOPT_LOG"