Deployment of High Energy Physics software with a standard method

Abstract: The installation and maintenance of scientific software for research in experimental, phenomenological, and theoretical High Energy Physics (HEP) requires a considerable amount of time and expertise. While many tools are available to make the task of installation and maintenance much easier, many of these tools require maintenance on their own, have little documentation and very few are used outside of HEP community. For the installation and maintenance of the software, we rely on the well tested, extensively documented, and reliable stack of software management tools with the RPM Package Manager (RPM) at its core. The precompiled HEP software packages can be deployed easily and without detailed Linux system knowledge and are kept up-to-date through the regular system update process. The precompiled packages were tested on multiple installations of openSUSE, RHEL clones, and Fedora. As the RPM infrastructure is adopted by many Linux distributions, the approach can be used on more systems. In this contribution, we discuss our approach to software deployment in detail, present the software repositories for multiple RPM-based Linux distributions to a wider public and call for a collaboration for all the interested parties.

• The paper introduces an RPM-based method that standardizes HEP software deployment using established OS practices for enhanced reproducibility.
• It employs cloud services like OBS and copr to build comprehensive binary and debug repositories, significantly cutting maintenance overhead.
• The approach facilitates container integration for CI workflows while primarily supporting RedHat and SUSE Linux distributions.

Deployment of High Energy Physics Software using RPM

Introduction

High Energy Physics (HEP) research demands a sophisticated computational environment, imposing several challenges in deploying complex scientific software across varying platforms. Despite existing solutions, these often present disadvantages such as excessive maintenance efforts, limited support across non-specialist environments, and fragmentation. The paper under discussion details an approach to leverage the RPM Package Manager for deploying HEP software in a standardized manner. By aligning with widely-adopted OS-level deployment strategies, the described method emphasizes ease of maintenance, reliability, and reproducibility.

Contextual Analysis of Deployment Techniques

The authors critically evaluate prevalent software deployment strategies within the HEP community:

• Scripted Installations: Traditionally, scripts allow for isolated environment setups but suffer from integration challenges, high real-time costs, and lack of reproducibility.
• LCG Software Stack: Provides a precompiled package environment. While comprehensive, it introduces dependency maintenance and lacks compatibility outside LCG systems.
• Universal Package Managers: Solutions like PyPi, Anaconda, and Spack offer cross-platform flexibility but face drawbacks in dependency completeness, user demand for maintenance, and absence of debug information.
• Containerization: Though excellent for abstraction, container deployment depends fundamentally on existing deployment methodologies, thus inheriting their constraints.

These analyses set the foundation for proposing RPM-based deployment as a more balanced and standardized approach.

Proposed RPM-Based Deployment Approach

The authors propose utilizing the RPM Package Manager for efficiently deploying HEP software. The emphasis is on bypassing custom deployment mechanisms by adhering to established OS vendor practices. This includes preparing packages using source files and spec files, facilitating builds via standard commands (e.g., rpmbuild), and leveraging Fedora and SUSE's established infrastructure.

The HEPrpms strategy exploits available cloud offerings such as Open Build Service (OBS) and copr for building and maintaining repositories, ensuring minimal setup costs and regular updates.

Advantages and Operational Efficiency

The RPM-based approach offers significant benefits:

• Reliability and Stability: Long-standing industry usage bestows maturity and robust documentation, ensuring stability.
• Zero Maintenance Overhead: Users benefit from a hassle-free installation experience comparable to well-known stacks like LCG.
• Comprehensive Binary and Debug Support: Unlike universal package managers, RPM offers dedicated repositories that include debug packages, critical for CI workflows.
• Container Compatibility: Integrating RPM into container-based CI resolutions balances version management and administrative requirements, optimizing development and deployment cycles.

Limitations and Future Considerations

While the approach confines compatibility to RedHat and SUSE Linux derivatives, it remains practically non-restrictive given that most HEP software is inherently Linux-centric. Though the current model does not inherently support alternate compiler chains, this is outweighed by the standard Unix GNU compiler suite's compatibility.

The paper proposes future refinement in harnessing containers to further segregate version dependencies, an experimental direction promising considerable enhancement in software portability and CI efficiency.

Conclusion

This paper advocates for RPM-centered deployment—highlighting modern tools and cloud services' ability to streamline and enhance HEP software ecosystems. By standardizing deployment procedures, it alleviates entry barriers, aiding new researchers and fostering ease of development in advancing theoretical and experimental physics endeavors. The approach sets a foundational precedent promoting sustainable software practices within and beyond the HEP community.