FreeBSD AccessGrid Port

AG3 Downloads and Installation:

A FreeBSD port tree for the latest version of the AccessGrid software (3.1 beta2) is available below as a buildable port as well as a prebuilt package, accessgrid31. The version number will be a snapshot release date (signifying the date the code was taken from the development repository) up until the final release is made, after which the proper "3.1" version number will be used.

In addition to the port for AG3 itself, the package provides ports for those dependencies not already available in the standard ports tree. Ports of dependencies in the standard ports tree should be automatically invoked when the AccessGrid port is built and installed, however these could be added in advance using the packages rather than ports mechanism.

Precompiled packages are also available for i386 systems for installation via pkg_add if desired (rather than building everything via the ports).

The AG 3.1 port was developed on an i386 FreeBSD 6.2-Release system with Gnome desktop and while it may build and run on other systems, limited resources prevent extensive support in such cases.

Downloads:

AG-3.1 beta2.tar.gz ports tree package (for FreeBSD 6.2-Release)

Status:

All standard features work, including the SharedBrowser and VenueVNC shared applications. These are enabled via port dependencies on wxmozilla-0.5.6 and tightvnc-1.2.9 respectively (these dependencies are already included in the main AG3 port's Makefile). Please note that earlier wxmozilla ports will not work.

The SharedPresentation shared app may work using OpenOffice, but since this is a ~6 hour port build, I haven't listed it as a dependency in the main AG3 port Makefile. Additionally, java support for OpenOffice requires installation of the Java SDK, which is itself a quite complicated process.

Install the OpenOffice port from:
/usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-2.0
Install the Java SDK port from:
/usr/ports/java/jdk15

Installation:

There are three ways to install the AG Toolkit. In increasing order of time/effort/difficulty, they are:

1. Using packages for everything:
    Use pkg_add -r to install the standard FreeBSD packages listed below
    Now run the following commands in a shell:
       setenv PACKAGEROOT http://www.vislab.uq.edu.au
       sudo pkg_add -r accessgrid31

2. Using packages for "standard" prerequisites and ports for everything else:
Use pkg_add -r to first install the standard FreeBSD packages listed below
Now follow the "Using ports" directions immediately below

3. Using ports:

            unpack the ports tree package with:
                tar zxvf AG-3.1-ports-20071010.tar.gz
            which will create a directory named AG-3.1-ports-20071010.

Now cd into the new directory and run:

sudo make install
which will download, build and install the AG-3.1 software and its dependencies

Prerequisite packages:

The following "standard" FreeBSD packages should be installed before installing the AG Toolkit:

gnome2 py24-wxPython py24-bsddb py24-avahi py24-dbus py24-feedparser tightvnc

Running AG3:

If running with the Gnome desktop (recommended), the main Applications menu will now have a new Access Grid 3 menu entry, which cascades out to reveal the various elements available from the AG3 toolkit. Most likely you will want to run the Venue Client (or perhaps its debug version). The default venue is the ANL Lobby. In the Asia Pacific region, the APAG AG3 venue server is at https://vv3.ap-accessgrid.org:8000/Venues/default

To enable the AG service discovery to work correctly, avahi & dbus must be enabled and they must be started in the correct order (bdus first). For correct startup ordering, change their names as follows:
   cd /usr/loca/etc/rc.d
   sudo mv dbus 010-dbus
   sudo mv avahi-daemon.sh 011-avahi-daemon.sh

You could start them now by running (still in same directory):
   sudo ./010-dbus start
   sudo ./011-avahi-daemon.sh start

To have avahi & dbus start up automatically at boot time, add the following lines to /etc/rc.conf:
   dbus_enable="YES"
   avahi_daemon_enable="YES"

Archive:

OLD AG-3.0.2-ports.tar.gz ports tree package (for FreeBSD 6.0)
OLD AG3ports.tar.gz ports tree package (NB. OLD version 3.0.1 for archive & reference only)

Acknowledgements:

The Access Grid Toolkit developed at the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
Development of this port at UQ Vislab was part of the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) Grid Program 2006

Any comments, suggestions about this page to Chris Willing <willing at vislab.uq.edu.au>