3 navsection: installguide
4 title: Planning and prerequisites
7 Copyright (C) The Arvados Authors. All rights reserved.
9 SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-3.0
12 Before attempting installation, you should begin by reviewing supported platforms, choosing backends for identity, storage, and scheduling, and decide how you will distribute Arvados services onto machines. You should also choose an Arvados Cluster ID, choose your hostnames, and aquire TLS certificates. It may be helpful to make notes as you go along using one of these worksheets: "New cluster checklist for AWS":new_cluster_checklist_AWS.xlsx - "New cluster checklist for Azure":new_cluster_checklist_Azure.xlsx - "New cluster checklist for on premises Slurm":new_cluster_checklist_slurm.xlsx
14 The installation guide describes how to set up a basic standalone Arvados instance. Additional configuration for features including "federation,":{{site.baseurl}}/admin/federation.html "collection versioning,":{{site.baseurl}}/admin/collection-versioning.html "managed properties,":{{site.baseurl}}/admin/collection-managed-properties.html and "storage classes":{{site.baseurl}}/admin/collection-managed-properties.html are described in the "Admin guide.":{{site.baseurl}}/admin/
16 The Arvados storage subsystem is called "keep". The compute subsystem is called "crunch".
18 # "Supported GNU/Linux distributions":#supportedlinux
19 # "Choosing which components to install":#components
20 # "Identity provider":#identity
21 # "Storage backend (Keep)":#storage
22 # "Container compute scheduler (Crunch)":#scheduler
23 # "Hardware or virtual machines":#machines
24 # "Arvados Cluster ID":#clusterid
25 # "DNS and TLS":#dnstls
28 h2(#supportedlinux). Supported GNU/Linux distributions
30 {% include 'supportedlinux' %}
32 h2(#components). Choosing which components to install
34 Arvados consists of many components, some of which may be omitted (at the cost of reduced functionality.) It may also be helpful to review the "Arvados Architecture":{{site.baseurl}}/architecture/ to understand how these components interact.
36 table(table table-bordered table-condensed).
38 |"PostgreSQL database":install-postgresql.html |Stores data for the API server.|Required.|
39 |"API server + Controller":install-api-server.html |Core Arvados logic for managing users, groups, collections, containers, and enforcing permissions.|Required.|
40 |\3=. *Keep (storage)*|
41 |"Keepstore":install-keepstore.html |Stores content-addressed blocks in a variety of backends (local filesystem, cloud object storage).|Required.|
42 |"Keepproxy":install-keepproxy.html |Gateway service to access keep servers from external networks.|Required to be able to use arv-put, arv-get, or arv-mount outside the private Arvados network.|
43 |"Keep-web":install-keep-web.html |Gateway service providing read/write HTTP and WebDAV support on top of Keep.|Required to access files from Workbench.|
44 |"Keep-balance":install-keep-balance.html |Storage cluster maintenance daemon responsible for moving blocks to their optimal server location, adjusting block replication levels, and trashing unreferenced blocks.|Required to free deleted data from underlying storage, and to ensure proper replication and block distribution (including support for storage classes).|
45 |\3=. *User interface*|
46 |"Workbench2":install-workbench2-app.html |Primary graphical user interface for working with file collections and running containers.|Optional. Depends on API server, keep-web, websockets server.|
47 |\3=. *Additional services*|
48 |"Websockets server":install-ws.html |Event distribution server.|Required to view streaming container logs in Workbench.|
49 |"Shell server":install-shell-server.html |Grant Arvados users access to Unix shell accounts on dedicated shell nodes.|Optional.|
50 |\3=. *Crunch (running containers)*|
51 |"arvados-dispatch-cloud":crunch2-cloud/install-dispatch-cloud.html |Run analysis workflows on cloud by allocating and freeing cloud VM instances on demand.|Optional|
52 |"crunch-dispatch-slurm":crunch2-slurm/install-dispatch.html |Run analysis workflows distributed across a Slurm cluster.|Optional|
53 |"crunch-dispatch-lsf":crunch2-lsf/install-dispatch.html |Run analysis workflows distributed across an LSF cluster.|Optional|
55 h2(#identity). Identity provider
57 Choose which backend you will use to authenticate users.
59 * Google login to authenticate users with a Google account.
60 * OpenID Connect (OIDC) if you have Single-Sign-On (SSO) service that supports the OpenID Connect standard.
61 * LDAP login to authenticate users by username/password using the LDAP protocol, supported by many services such as OpenLDAP and Active Directory.
62 * PAM login to authenticate users by username/password according to the PAM configuration on the controller node.
64 h2(#postgresql). PostgreSQL
66 Arvados works well with a standalone PostgreSQL installation. When deploying on AWS, Aurora RDS also works but Aurora Serverless is not recommended.
68 h2(#storage). Storage backend
70 Choose which backend you will use for storing and retrieving content-addressed Keep blocks.
72 * File systems storage, such as ext4 or xfs, or network file systems such as GPFS or Lustre
73 * Amazon S3, or other object storage that supports the S3 API including Google Cloud Storage and Ceph.
76 You should also determine the desired replication factor for your data. A replication factor of 1 means only a single copy of a given data block is kept. With a conventional file system backend and a replication factor of 1, a hard drive failure is likely to lose data. For this reason the default replication factor is 2 (two copies are kept).
78 A backend may have its own replication factor (such as durability guarantees of cloud buckets) and Arvados will take this into account when writing a new data block.
80 h2(#scheduler). Container compute scheduler
82 Choose which backend you will use to schedule computation.
84 * On AWS EC2 and Azure, you probably want to use @arvados-dispatch-cloud@ to manage the full lifecycle of cloud compute nodes: starting up nodes sized to the container request, executing containers on those nodes, and shutting nodes down when no longer needed.
85 * For on-premises HPC clusters using "slurm":https://slurm.schedmd.com/ use @crunch-dispatch-slurm@ to execute containers with slurm job submissions.
86 * For on-premises HPC clusters using "LSF":https://www.ibm.com/products/hpc-workload-management/ use @crunch-dispatch-lsf@ to execute containers with slurm job submissions.
87 * For single node demos, use @crunch-dispatch-local@ to execute containers directly.
89 h2(#machines). Hardware (or virtual machines)
91 Choose how to allocate Arvados services to machines. We recommend that each machine start with a clean installation of a supported GNU/Linux distribution.
93 For a production installation, this is a reasonable starting point:
96 table(table table-bordered table-condensed).
97 |_. Function|_. Number of nodes|_. Recommended specs|
98 |PostgreSQL database, Arvados API server, Arvados controller, Websockets, Container dispatcher|1|16+ GiB RAM, 4+ cores, fast disk for database|
99 |Workbench, Keepproxy, Keep-web, Keep-balance|1|8 GiB RAM, 2+ cores|
100 |Keepstore servers ^1^|2+|4 GiB RAM|
101 |Compute worker nodes ^1^|0+ |Depends on workload; scaled dynamically in the cloud|
102 |User shell nodes ^2^|0+|Depends on workload|
105 ^1^ Should be scaled up as needed
106 ^2^ Refers to shell nodes managed by Arvados that provide ssh access for users to interact with Arvados at the command line. Optional.
108 {% include 'notebox_begin' %}
109 For a small demo installation, it is possible to run all the Arvados services on a single node. Special considerations for single-node installs will be noted in boxes like this.
110 {% include 'notebox_end' %}
112 h2(#clusterid). Arvados Cluster ID
114 Each Arvados installation is identified by a cluster identifier, which is a unique 5-character lowercase alphanumeric string. There are 36 5 = 60466176 possible cluster identifiers.
116 * For automated test purposes, use “z****”
117 * For experimental/local-only/private clusters that won’t ever be visible on the public Internet, use “x****”
118 * For long-lived clusters, we recommend reserving a cluster id. Contact "info@curii.com":mailto:info@curii.com for more information.
120 Here is one way to make a random 5-character string:
123 <pre><code>~$ <span class="userinput">tr -dc 0-9a-z </dev/urandom | head -c5; echo</span>
127 You may also use a different method to pick the cluster identifier. The cluster identifier will be part of the hostname of the services in your Arvados cluster. The rest of this documentation will refer to it as your @ClusterID@. Whenever @ClusterID@ appears in a configuration example, replace it with your five-character cluster identifier.
129 h2(#dnstls). DNS entries and TLS certificates
131 The following services are normally public-facing and require DNS entries and corresponding TLS certificates. Get certificates from your preferred TLS certificate provider. We recommend using "Let's Encrypt":https://letsencrypt.org/. You can run several services on the same node, but each distinct DNS name requires a valid, matching TLS certificate.
133 This guide uses the following DNS name conventions. A later part of this guide will describe how to set up Nginx virtual hosts.
134 It is possible to use custom DNS names for the Arvados services.
136 <div class="offset1">
137 table(table table-bordered table-condensed).
138 |_. Function|_. DNS name|
139 |Arvados API|@ClusterID.example.com@|
140 |Arvados Webshell|webshell.@ClusterID.example.com@|
141 |Arvados Websockets endpoint|ws.@ClusterID.example.com@|
142 |Arvados Workbench|workbench.@ClusterID.example.com@|
143 |Arvados Workbench 2|workbench2.@ClusterID.example.com@|
144 |Arvados Keepproxy server|keep.@ClusterID.example.com@|
145 |Arvados Keep-web server|download.@ClusterID.example.com@
147 *.collections.@ClusterID.example.com@ _or_
148 *<notextile>--</notextile>collections.@ClusterID.example.com@ _or_
149 collections.@ClusterID.example.com@ (see the "keep-web install docs":install-keep-web.html)|
152 Setting up Arvados is easiest when Wildcard TLS and wildcard DNS are available. It is also possible to set up Arvados without wildcard TLS and DNS, but not having a wildcard for @keep-web@ (i.e. not having *.collections.@ClusterID.example.com@) comes with a tradeoff: it will disable some features that allow users to view Arvados-hosted data in their browsers. More information on this tradeoff caused by the CORS rules applied by modern browsers is available in the "keep-web URL pattern guide":../api/keep-web-urls.html.
154 The table below lists the required TLS certificates and DNS names in each scenario.
156 <div class="offset1">
157 table(table table-bordered table-condensed).
158 ||_. Wildcard TLS and DNS available|_. Wildcard TLS available|_. Other|
159 |TLS|@ClusterID.example.com@
160 *.@ClusterID.example.com@
161 *.collections.@ClusterID.example.com@|*.@ClusterID.example.com@
162 @ClusterID.example.com@|@ClusterID.example.com@
163 git.@ClusterID.example.com@
164 webshell.@ClusterID.example.com@
165 ws.@ClusterID.example.com@
166 workbench.@ClusterID.example.com@
167 workbench2.@ClusterID.example.com@
168 keep.@ClusterID.example.com@
169 download.@ClusterID.example.com@
170 collections.@ClusterID.example.com@|
171 |DNS|@ClusterID.example.com@
172 git.@ClusterID.example.com@
173 webshell.@ClusterID.example.com@
174 ws.@ClusterID.example.com@
175 workbench.@ClusterID.example.com@
176 workbench2.@ClusterID.example.com@
177 keep.@ClusterID.example.com@
178 download.@ClusterID.example.com@
179 *.collections.@ClusterID.example.com@|@ClusterID.example.com@
180 git.@ClusterID.example.com@
181 webshell.@ClusterID.example.com@
182 ws.@ClusterID.example.com@
183 workbench.@ClusterID.example.com@
184 workbench2.@ClusterID.example.com@
185 keep.@ClusterID.example.com@
186 download.@ClusterID.example.com@
187 collections.@ClusterID.example.com@|@ClusterID.example.com@
188 git.@ClusterID.example.com@
189 webshell.@ClusterID.example.com@
190 ws.@ClusterID.example.com@
191 workbench.@ClusterID.example.com@
192 workbench2.@ClusterID.example.com@
193 keep.@ClusterID.example.com@
194 download.@ClusterID.example.com@
195 collections.@ClusterID.example.com@|
198 {% include 'notebox_begin' %}
199 It is also possible to create your own certificate authority, issue server certificates, and install a custom root certificate in the browser. This is out of scope for this guide.
200 {% include 'notebox_end' %}