Adding a new cvmfs repository

This article gives a quick overview of the steps needed to create a new cvmfs repository and activate it on the clients. The repository name used in the examples is my.repo.fqdn; replace it with the appropriate name (i.e., a fully-qualified domain name corresponding to a domain name is owned by the party being served). At Nikhef, the Stratum-0 and Stratum-1 servers are mesthoop and cvmfs01 (an alias), respectively.

Stratum-0

• Create a new repository:

cvmfs_server mkfs -w http://<STRATUM-0>/cvmfs/my.repo.fqdn -o cvmfs my.repo.fqdn

• Populate a new repository, or update an existing repository:

cvmfs_server transaction my.repo.fqdn
rsync -av <SRCDIR> /cvmfs/my.repo.fqdn/
cvmfs_server publish my.repo.fqdn

Note that the rsync and publish commands may take some time. It is useful to execute them from a screen session.

(You may want to replace the rsync by an rm followed by a copy, to ensure that obsolete files are removed from the repository)

(or to abort:)

cvmfs_server abort my.repo.fqdn

• Enable replication to Stratum-1 servers:

cvmfs_server alterfs -m on my.repo.fqdn

(this was needed when creating a new repository with cvmfs <= 2.1.14).

• Periodically resign the repository (at least every 30 days):

cvmfs_server resign my.repo.fqdn

or use a script to resign all repositories that are configured on the Stratum-0 server. This script is weekly executed from a cron job.

Stratum-1

• Add the public key of the new repository to /etc/cvmfs/keys/my.repo.fqdn.pub

• Add the repository:

 cvmfs_server add-replica http://<STRATUM-0>/cvmfs/my.repo.fqdn /etc/cvmfs/keys/my.repo.fqdn.pub

• To synchronize:

 cvmfs_server snapshot my.repo.fqdn

or use a script to update snapshots of all repositories:

/usr/local/sbin/cvmfs-stratum1-synchronize.sh

This script is executed every hour from a cron job to synchronize all repositories that are configured on the Stratum-1 server.

Clients

• Add the public key of the new repository to /etc/cvmfs/keys/my.repo.fqdn.pub

• Configuration for the new repository:

# cat /etc/cvmfs/config.d/my.repo.fqdn.conf 
CVMFS_PUBLIC_KEY=/etc/cvmfs/keys/my.repo.fqdn.pub
CVMFS_SERVER_URL=http://<STRATUM-1>/cvmfs/@fqrn@/

Make sure that the clients connect to the Stratum-1 servers via a local Squid proxy!