Linux support in Zeuthen is based on Scientific Linux, an effort kindly made available by FNAL with contributions from other labs.
SL is in use at virtually all HEP sites and many other labs, universities, and enterprises.
Information for Linux Users
Using the Infiniband compute cluster
Status of SL Releases
Scientific Linux 7
SL7 is expected to become available in Q3/2015 and be supported until end 2020. Local support may end before, in particular for desktop systems.
Scientific Linux 6
SL6 has been our workhorse since Summer 2012. All the farm nodes, most workgroup servers and the majority of desktops are running it. Users and groups are encouraged to request migration of their remaining SL5 systems. SL6 should work on newly released hardware until early 2016. General support ends mid 2017, but local support may end before in particular for desktop systems.
Scientific Linux 5
SL5 was our workhorse from Summer 2007 to early 2012, and is now gradually being replaced by SL6.
New hardware worked with SL5 until mid 2012. Support for SL5 on Sandy Bridge and later hardware generations is not foreseen, which affects some hardware purchased in 2012 and all systems purchased later. Supporting existing systems should have been possible until April 2017, but due to a recent policy change redefining the "production 3 phase" in the lifecycle of the commercial enterprise distribution SL5 is derived from, it is effectively end of life since mid 2015 and can no longer be considered a platform with adequate security support for our purposes. Features are generally frozen, and some will have to be removed soon. There are no more user accessible 32-bit systems.
Remaining SL5 systems must be upgraded as soon as possible.
Scientific Linux 4
SL4 was largely skipped, although a number of systems were used for providing services, as ATLAS WGS, and in the NAF. As of March 1st, 2012, SL4 is completely unsupported and all remaining systems were shut down.
Scientific Linux 3
SL3 was our workhorse from early 2005 to Summer 2007. It no longer works on any current hardware and is now completely unsupported. There are no more SL3 systems in Zeuthen.
Full upstream support ended November 2007. On December 1st, it transisitioned to "Legacy support". See this copy of the announcement.
Within these limitations, existing SL3 systems were supported until October 2010, the end of life date of RHEL3. A few systems with very special purpose (PITZ DAQ / radiation monitoring, APE reference host) were even run until late 2012, with dwindling support but still placing significant demands on our human resources.
Local Repositories and Mirrors
We mirror the current SL5 and SL6 releases: Local_Linux_Repositories
Network installations (http) are also possible from these repositories, using the small boot.iso CD images found in the images/ subdirectory of the distribution.
Full iso images are usually available in /project/linux/iso.
Historic DESY Linux Releases