Using Ganga

Ganga, a front-end interface to the Grid and other batch systems, is currently accessible from your desktop and on the BlueBEAR cluster.


Quick start

Ganga from your desktop
$ /home/atsoft3/common/Ganga/runGanga [VERSION] [OPTIONS]

Ganga on BlueBEAR
$ /bb/projects/Ganga/runGanga [VERSION] [OPTIONS]
where:
  • VERSION has the format x.y.z and is optional. If omitted, the latest version (currently 4.4.6) is used.
  • For information on all OPTIONS available, use the -h option.


Things you should know

  1. For grid access, you will need a grid certificate. Remeber also that the .globus/ subdirectory (which contains all the relevant certificates) has to be present in your home directory of both your local desktop and BlueBEAR.
  2. BlueBEAR access can be obtained from
    http://www.bear.bham.ac.uk/bluebear/

  3. Do NOT source lcguisetup (as you would if you were trying to access the Grid directly) when using Ganga. Ganga will do it for you.

  4. You can safely ignore the following benign warning from the UI when you are prompted for your grid passphrase.
    "Cannot find file or dir: xxxxxxxxxxx/glite/etc/vomses"

  5. If you do not have a Grid certificate or do not wish to submit any jobs to the Grid, there is an special --disableLCG to force Ganga to disable Grid-related actions. With the --disableLCG option, Ganga will no longer prompt you for your Grid passphrase on startup.

  6. Submission of Ganga jobs directly from your desktop to BlueBEAR is not supported. So, to use BlueBEAR resources, you will have to run Ganga from the BlueBEAR login node and submit your jobs using the PBS plugin. Do not use the Local plugin as the BlueBear login node will be tied up running your job.

  7. For ATLAS users on BlueBEAR, the currently available Atlas software versions are 11.0.42, 12.0.6, 13.0.30 and 13.0.40.


Useful links

Grid basics
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/deployment/users/basics.html

Info on Grid Certificates
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/deployment/users/certificate.html

Grid Certificate Registration
http://www.grid-support.ac.uk/ca/

Ganga tutorials
http://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/Atlas/DistributedAnalysisUsingGanga

More Grid links
http://www.ep.ph.bham.ac.uk/index.php?page=group/locdoc/gridlinks