Setting up SLACM

SLACM is distributed computing platform, and it runs a set of hosts connected via the network. For simplicity, all hosts are to be located on the same sub-net of a network. All hosts are expected to run Linux, to be specific Ubuntu 22.04 with Python 3.11 (or later) installed. The host can be Linux machine (e.g. a Raspberry Pi), a Linux virtual machine, a WSL instance running on Windows, or an embedded system running Linux. One specific host, called the development host is where all the application source code, model, configuration and related data files, etc. are located. Other hosts, called the target hosts can run specific actors of the application.

Target hosts are optional, so an application can run on the development host only, on target hosts only, or on any combination of the development and target hosts. If target hosts are used, they must have a special user (called ‘slacm’) that the SLACM framework is using to run application actors.

Install SLACM

On the development host:

  • Download the source distibution from the repository.

$ git clone https://github.com/SLAcM/SLAcM.git
$ cd SLAcM

  • Install the packages required by SLACM:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt --break-system-packages

Note: The recommended way to install Python packages is to use a Python Virtual Environment and install the packages in there. However, the packages SLACM needs are not interfering with typical system packages, hence they can be safely installed. Hence the The --break-systemm-packages option in the above command. This option should be omitted if the installation is for a Python virtual environment.

  • Install SLACM itself:

$ cd SLAcM
$ sudo pip install . --break-system-packages

Note: SLACM can be installed and used on the development host using any user name. However, if distributed applications are developed then a ‘slacm’ user account must be created on the target hosts. SLACM will download the applications to the target using that account, and will run them under that user.

Preparing the target hosts

Create the ‘slacm’ user on the target hosts

Create a user ‘slacm’ and add it to the ‘sudo’ capable users:

$ sudo adduser slacm
$ usermod -aG sudo slacm

Enable passwordless sudo for ‘slacm’ on the target hosts

$ sudo -s
$ echo "slacm ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/slacm
$ chmod ug=r,o=-rwx /etc/sudoers.d/slacm

Some of the ‘slacm_fabcommands require admin privileges on the _development_ host, so it is recommended to execute the commands for password-lesssudo` on that host as well.

Set up the target hosts for password-less access

Use the development host to generate ssh keys and to set up key-based/password-less access to all target hosts. Note that the development host can also be a target host, but, in this case, because the SLACM uses ssh to launch actors the development host must have a ‘slacm’ user, in addition to a development user. The SLACM application will be created by the development user and executed using the slacm_run under the user name ‘slacm’.

  • Generate a key-pair, without password, on the development host.

$ ssh-keygen

Note: The generated key pair is expected to have the name id_rsa and ida_rsa.pub, and is to be located the ~/.ssh/ folder.

  • Copy the key-pair to each target host

$ ssh-copy-id slacm@TARGETIP

  • Verify password-less access:

$ ssh slacm@TARGETIP

This last command should not ask for password.

Repeat the last two steps for each target host.

slacm_fab commands

There is a Fabric script included in the package, that implements some useful commands, for interacting with the target hosts. These commands can be run using slacm_fab command, installed in the same location as slacm_run

Example:

$ slacm_fab -H host1,host2 -v do.check

The arguments for the -H option specifies on which target host(s) the command do.check is to be executed. The -v option turns on logging.
Commands on the remote hosts are running under the slacm user name.

The available commands are:

  • do.check: connects to the target nodes, and prints their system information

  • do.requires: installs the required 3rd party packages on the target nodes. This needs to be done only once.

  • do.deploy: installs SLACM on target nodes - must be run from the folder containing the `SLAcM’ code base.

  • do.stop: stops a running SLACM application (slacm_run) on the target hosts

  • do.kill: kills any lingering SLACM processes on all target nodes

  • do.wipe: wipe the ‘slacm’ user account clean on the target nodes

Internal commands (for package developer’s use only):

  • do.build: rebuilds the SLACM package from source, on the local host

  • do.get: retrieve a remote file from a target node

  • do.put: place a local file to a target node

  • do.run: run a command on a target node. Example: slacm_fab -H HOST do.run "ls -al"

  • do.sudo: run a sudo command on a target node. Example: slacm_fab -H HOST do.sudo "ls -al /root"

  • do.install: installs SLACM on the local development host - must be run with ‘sudo’, and from the folder containing the `SLAcM’ code base.

  • do.deploy: installs SLACM on target nodes - must be run from the folder containing the `SLAcM’ code base.

  • do.uninstall: unistalless SLACM from the local development host - must be run with ‘sudo’

  • do.undeploy: uninstalls SLACM from the target hosts