Basic orientation

Basic orientation
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The core mechanism for administrating a dCache instance is the admin interface. This is a service you may connect to using an ssh client. Using the admin interface, you may communicate with the various components making up dCache, query their status and update their behaviour. Although dCache is a distributed system, you only ever connect to a single node; dCache will route your messages internally.

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Connecting to the admin interface

The admin interface uses the non-default port 22223 and the non-default cipher blowfish. This interface includes a default account with username admin and password dickerelke.

A suitable command for connecting to your dCache instance is:

[user@ui-node] $ ssh -1 -c blowfish -p 22223 -l admin dcache-node.fzk.de

Note

On many machines, this may be abbreviated to:

[user@ui-node] $ ssh -c blowfish -p 22223 admin@dcache-node.fzk.de

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Navigating within the admin interface

On connecting to the dCache head node, you should see the following prompt:

[user@ui-node] $ ssh -p 22223 -c blowfish admin@dcache-node.fzk.de
admin@dcache-node's password:
Warning: Remote host denied authentication agent forwarding.

    dCache Admin (VII) (user=admin)


[dcache-node.fzk.de] (local) admin >

The last line is the prompt indicating that you are logged in as user admin and are not connected to any specific cell (hence “local”).

To move to a particular well-known cell, use the cd command. For example, to switch to the PnfsManager cell, issue the command cd PnfsManger

[dcache-node.fzk.de] (local) admin > cd PnfsManager
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (PnfsManager) admin >

All cells implement at least two commands: help and info. The help command displays a list of all commands that cell understands along with what arguments are available. The info displays some basic information about the cell. The format of this basic information depends on which cell you are connected to.

Obtain a list of supported commands
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (PnfsManager) admin > help
 say  <arg-0>
 cacheinfoof <pnfsid>|<globalPath>
 flags remove <pnfsId> <key> [...]
 flags ls <pnfsId>
(many additional commands have been omitted)
 get file checksum <pnfsid> <type>
 show pinboard [<lines>] # dumps the last <lines> to the terminal

Obtain the current status of this cell
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (PnfsManager) admin > info
Revision: 9550 $
NameSpace Provider:
$Id: ChimeraNameSpaceProvider.java,v 1.7 2007-10-01 12:28:03 tigran Exp $
DB        : jdbc:postgresql://localhost/chimera?prepareThreshold=3
Drv       : org.postgresql.Driver
(many addional lines of output have been omitted)

Statistics:
  addCacheLocation                         0         0
  clearCacheLocation                       0         0
  getCacheLocations                        0         0
  createDirectory                          0         0
  createEntry                              0         0
  deleteEntry                              0         0
  getStorageInfo                           0         0
  setStorageInfo                           0         0
  setLength                                0         0
  getCacheStatistics                       0         0
  updateCacheStatistics                    0         0
  rename                                   0         0
  setLevelData                             0         0
  fileFlushed                              0         0
  mapPath2Id                               0         0
  mapId2Path                               0         0
  getMetadataInfo                          0         0
  setMetadataInfo                          0         0

When navigating to another cell, one must first leave the current cell. This is achieved using the two dots (..) command. Please note that there is no cd preceeding the two dots.

[dcache-node.fzk.de] (PnfsManager) admin > ..
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (local) admin > cd PoolManager

Obtain a list of commands that begin with "pm"
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (PoolManager) admin > help pm
pm ls [<section>] [-l]
pm destroy <partitionName> # destroys parameter partition
pm set [<partitionName>] OPTIONS #  help pm set
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (PoolManager) admin >

Mistyping a cell's name

The cd command will always succeed, even if the requested cell doesn't exist. It is only when you attempt to send commands to that cell that you will learn you have mistyped the cell. If so, then you will receive a No Route to cell error message:

[dcache-node.fzk.de] (local) admin > > cd NoSuchCell
[dcache-node.fzk.de] (NoSuchCell) admin > help
No Route to cell for packet {uoid=<1219746077076:190>;path=[>NoSuchCell@local
];msg=Tunnel cell >NoSuchCell@local< not found at >dCacheDomain<}

If this happens, simply use the .. command to navigate back to local