perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Mark Baker <>]

Hi Robert,

I may have some value to you quest - I have a centralized PerfSonar build within an Intranet based network -

Which was primarily built to monitor and chart the basic PS functions of reporting loss and latency.

I have built this on Centos 05 releases variance of minor releases - and it works fine with the web servers which

respond to charting requests and the main MA's running on key central servers - with endpoints active on
remote smaller black boxes. I have admin servers running in a few locations based on regional site and time

zones.

If I can share any information that would be of value, please let me know - I was able to build this with
assistance from the I2 group before the kit was available on image, it was only a live CD at this time but

I managed to assemble a low level model which for me offered a set of key charts which was my main
objective. These servers are running and I maintain this architecture to this day.

I'm not sure of automating the configuration centrally, so the procedure is still manual, although I have

used some linux imaging for replication procedures (G4U/G4L)

If you would like any details feel free to contact me

I can say without question, that even this scaled down PS build is one of my most valued tool sets - I have
been in the business for almost 30 years and it is "irreplaceable".

Best regards

Mark

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Robert V. Bolton <> wrote:

I just want to elaborate a little on what I'm trying to accomplish by deploying a perfSONAR box without using the toolkit. I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to deploy a number of server to test both bandwidth and latency through out a large geographical area. During this process I've discovered a few problems I need to solve that aren't currently being addressed by the perfSONAR toolkit. Here is a list of the challenges I've run into:

1. Server deployment and centralized configuration management.
2. Creating a centralized measurement archive
3. Central display of throughput / latency graphs

In addressing these challenges I've come up with a few ideas, but I'm always open to more suggestions. For the first problem I was thinking about deploying a base CentOS 6 image using Cobbler and using a post-install script to add the EPEL and Internet2 repos, install the web100 kernel, and install the salt minion client. Once I had these images installed I was going to use the SatlStack to mange packages and config files. I've yet to figure out how to accomplish my two other goals.  For those of you who are using a centralized measurement archive how are you accomplishing this? Are there any pitfalls to watch out for? Are you able to leverage this centralized measurement archive for graphing? Are you able to accomplish this using the perfSONAR toolkit?



Alan Whinery wrote:

Also, if it's not already on your RADAR  -- browse
http://software.internet2.edu

What Jason says is pretty much the ticket for the holistic solution,
installing packages may be useful for what you want to achieve, and
installing things piecemeal is very instructive about the innards of
perfSONAR in a way that the turnkey pSPT solution isn't.  (For one
thing, it would instill an appreciation for pSPT).

On 5/15/2013 8:54 AM, Jason Zurawski wrote:

Hey Robert;

We don't have a complete guide for how to do this, but there is some information here that will be useful:

  http://psps.perfsonar.net/start.html

Those that have taken this road before have noted that it can be problematic when attempting to use some of the RPMs due to version mismatches and the like (particularly if you are starting with something that != CentOS 5/6).  To prevent headaches we would recommend just sticking with a pSPT if you want all the pSPT functionality.  If you plan to just install a tool or two (like BWCTL and it's related libraries), the RPM method should work fine. 

Thanks;

-jason

On May 15, 2013, at 2:47 PM, "Robert V. Bolton" 
 wrote:

Hello,

I'm looking to build a perfSONAR box without using the toolkit, but I can't seem to find any documentation on how to go about doing this. Do I just need to add the I2 repos and use the web100 kernel and then install the packages I need, or is it a little more complicated than that? 

-- 
Robert V. Bolton
Systems Administrator 
University of Utah
Center for High Performance Computing
801-528-8233 |  

--
Robert V. Bolton
Systems Administrator
University of Utah
Center for High Performance Computing
801-528-8233 |

--

Mark Baker
Senior Network Analyst
CBC Technology
Broadcast & Telecommunications Networks
181 Queen Street
Ottawa
K1Y1E4
613.288.6305 Desk
613.288.6295 Fax

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