perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Warren Matthews <>]

The difference is we have people familiar with MRTG/RRDtool and
scripting/perl. Network admins have acquired these skills over time in
the course of running networks. I am hoping to get a student more
familiar with the concepts, but right now we don't have the right
skills.

On Fri, 2006-08-18 at 11:27 +0200, Szymon Trocha wrote:
> Chris Welti wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I'm afraid I have to agree with Warren here.
> > I tried to get the java perfSONAR suite 1.0 running investing more than a
> >  day and I couldn't even get axis and exist running properly.
> > Unless there is a really simple way of installing perfSONAR, you're
> > not going to get this tool widely used.
> > And by simple, i mean _really_ simple, like a debian package that can
> > be installed via apt-get install, or something like make / make install,
> > or just a script that does ALL the installation tasks for you.
> > The point here is that I want to be able to just execute ONE programm
> > that does the installation for me. No worries about which paths to use
> > for the different tools, version numbers of programs, setting environment
> > variables, configuring port numbers to use, and so on. 
> > There are way to many steps involved in the installation process that can
> > go wrong.
> > The problem is of course that you are depending on java/tomcat/axis/exist
> > and you don't have control about it's configuration/installation.
> > Well, that's the downside of not having a stand-alone application.
> > The perl installation was much less of a hassle and is still running
> > fine here at SWITCH.
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Users are always very demanding and that is our goal to fulfill their 
> requirements. That is why such voices are important.
> 
> On the other hand I'm trying to understand the problem also comparing to 
> other tools available somewhere. So let me summarize:
> 
> - script that does all the installation, one program, single click, etc
> I think it's already there. Everything one has to do is to run 
> ./install.pl and answer questions. That's only one script as you would 
> like to see. It installs *perfSONAR".
> - No worries about which paths to use for the different tools, version 
> numbers of programs, setting environment variables, configuring port 
> numbers to use, and so on.
> You are right there are many tools where you just run 
> configure/make/make install but the point is there are prerequisites and 
> many other tools require them too. Let's for example look at RRDtool 
> installation: it requires 4 libraries to install and then a couple of 
> variables to set. The guidelines is about 3 pages long. I'm even not 
> talking about configuration.
> You need ports configuration because you have more than 1 service 
> installed and you have to specify it somehow.
> I don't think the need to install prerequisites and problem with their 
> configuration is a voice against perfSONAR. Let's back to RRDtool - if 
> you fail with perl libraries installation (which is not always 
> straightforward as you may end up with not the right directories) you 
> will not be able to use it. But it's not the fault of RRDtool.
> Of course it shouldn't prevent us from improving installation scripts 
> according to your comments.
> - I agree that a separate package of applications necessary to run 
> perfSONAR might be a good idea to provide end-users with easier 
> installation process.
> 
> Best regards,