Getting Started

This section describes how to install the CernVM-FS client. The CernVM-FS client is supported on x86, x86_64, and ARMv7 architectures running Scientific Linux 4-7, Ubuntu \(\geq12.04\), SLES 11, 12 and openSuSE 13.1, Fedora 25 and 26, or Mac OS X \(\geq 10.12\). There is experimental support for AArch64 and Power 8.

Getting the Software

The CernVM-FS source code and binary packages are available on our website. Binary packages are produced for rpm, dpkg, and Mac OS X (.pkg). Packages for 64 bit and 32 bit Scientific Linux 5 and 6 and 64 bit Scientific Linux 7 are available as a yum repository. Ubuntu and Debian packages are available through our apt repository. The cvmfs-release packages can be used to add these yum/apt repositories to the local package sources list. The cvmfs-release packages are available on our download page.

The CernVM-FS client is not relocatable and needs to be installed under /usr. On Intel architectures, it needs a gcc \(\geq 4.2\) compiler, on ARMv7 a gcc \(\geq 4.7\) compiler. In order to compile and install from sources, use the following cmake command:

cmake .
make
sudo make install

Installation

Linux

To install, proceed according to the following steps:

Step 1

Install the CernVM-FS packages. With yum, run

sudo yum install cvmfs cvmfs-config-default

If yum does not show the latest packages, clean the yum cache by sudo yum clean all. Packages can be also installed with rpm instead with the command rpm -vi. On Ubuntu, use

sudo apt-get install cvmfs cvmfs-config-default

If apt does not show the latest packages, run sudo apt-get update before. Packages can be also installed with dpkg instead with the command dpkg -i.

Step 2
For the base setup, run cvmfs_config setup. Alternatively, you can do the base setup by hand: ensure that user_allow_other is set in /etc/fuse.conf, ensure that /cvmfs /etc/auto.cvmfs is set in /etc/auto.master and that the autofs service is running. If you migrate from a previous version of CernVM-FS, check the release notes if there is anything special to do for migration.
Step 3
Create /etc/cvmfs/default.local and open the file for editing.
Step 4

Select the desired repositories by setting CVMFS_REPOSITORIES=repo1,repo2,.... For ATLAS, for instance, set

CVMFS_REPOSITORIES=atlas.cern.ch,atlas-condb.cern.ch,grid.cern.ch

Specify the HTTP proxy servers on your site with

CVMFS_HTTP_PROXY="http://myproxy1:port|http://myproxy2:port"

For the syntax of more complex HTTP proxy settings, see Network Settings. Make sure your local proxy servers allow access to all the Stratum 1 web servers (more on proxy configuration here). For Cern repositories, the Stratum 1 web servers are listed in /etc/cvmfs/domain.d/cern.ch.conf.

Step 5
Check if CernVM-FS mounts the specified repositories by cvmfs_config probe. If the probe fails, try to restart autofs with sudo service autofs restart.

Mac OS X

On Mac OS X, CernVM-FS is based on OSXFuse. It is not integrated with autofs. In order to install, proceed according to the following steps:

Step 1
Install the CernVM-FS package by opening the .pkg file.
Step 2
Create /etc/cvmfs/default.local and open the file for editing.
Step 3

Select the desired repositories by setting CVMFS_REPOSITORIES=repo1,repo2,.... For CMS, for instance, set

CVMFS_REPOSITORIES=cms.cern.ch

Specify the HTTP proxy servers on your site with

CVMFS_HTTP_PROXY="http://myproxy1:port|http://myproxy2:port"

If you’re unsure about the proxy names, set CVMFS_HTTP_PROXY=DIRECT.

Step 4

Mount your repositories like

sudo mkdir -p /cvmfs/cms.cern.ch
sudo mount -t cvmfs cms.cern.ch /cvmfs/cms.cern.ch

Usage

The CernVM-FS repositories are located under /cvmfs. Each repository is identified by a fully qualified repository name. The fully qualified repository name consists of a repository identifier and a domain name, similar to DNS records [Mockapetris87]. The domain part of the fully qualified repository name indicates the location of repository creation and maintenance. For the ATLAS experiment software, for instance, the fully qualified repository name is atlas.cern.ch although the hosting web servers are spread around the world.

Mounting and un-mounting of the CernVM-FS is controlled by autofs and automount. That is, starting from the base directory /cvmfs different repositories are mounted automatically just by accessing them. For instance, running the command ls /cvmfs/atlas.cern.ch will mount the ATLAS software repository on the fly. This directory gets automatically unmounted after some automount-defined idle time.

Debugging Hints

In order to check for common misconfigurations in the base setup, run

cvmfs_config chksetup

CernVM-FS gathers its configuration parameter from various configuration files that can overwrite each others settings (default configuration, domain specific configuration, local setup, …). To show the effective configuration for repository.cern.ch, run

cvmfs_config showconfig repository.cern.ch

In order to exclude autofs/automounter as a source of problems, you can try to mount repository.cern.ch manually by

mkdir -p /mnt/cvmfs
mount -t cvmfs repository.cern.ch /mnt/cvmfs

In order to exclude SELinux as a source of problems, you can try mounting after SELinux has been disabled by

/usr/sbin/setenforce 0

Once you sorted out a problem, make sure that you do not get the original error served from the file system buffers by

service autofs restart

In case you need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us at cernvm.support@cern.ch. Together with the problem description, please send the system information tarball created by cvmfs_config bugreport.