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Provide a template for "Dear admins - please install Singularity" email #142
Description
This idea was originally suggested by @KirstieJane who is struggling with this issue currently. Even though I personally got Singularity installed at all systems I needed it I know there are other users having difficult conversations with the admins of their systems (@danlurie) so I decided to act as a messenger.
The idea would be to provide an email template or talking points for users to use when asking administrators to install Singularity on their systems. This could include:
- reference to other well known systems already supporting singularity
- discussion of security concerns and how the security of Singularity is being vetted
Reacted by Vanessa Sochat
Activity
danlurie commentedon Oct 18, 2017
vsoch commentedon Oct 18, 2017
aw @danlurie that makes me so sad ;( Did you reach out to others for help?
Definitely if you have a draft it would be a good start. I might put too many ascii art if I come up with the first shot!
danlurie commentedon Oct 18, 2017
@vsoch I did. I coordinated a lot with @chrisfilo and @jbpoline, as well as consultants at Berkeley Research Computing. The main sticking point was that our departmental cluster admin didn't feel comfortable allowing SUID applications running as root, and felt that the risk of data loss was too high even given the widespread use of Singularity of much larger systems. One thing to mention is that our departmental cluster is tied directly into our file server, so in theory a buggy/compromised program running as root could do serious damage to many years of data and analysis for multiple users.
I looked around and all of my arguments were spread across multiple emails. Essentially they focused on:
One thing that I thought would be convincing (but ultimately wasn't) was an email sent to the Singularity development team from a Security manager at a very large, internationally recognized European research center. The message was to congratulate the team on their work securing the Singularity code, and called it "one of the best code I've seen from a security point of view". I don't want to get any more specific here, but I'm happy to give more details offline. (The message was forwarded to me by someone at Berkeley Research Computing).
vsoch commentedon Oct 21, 2017
hey @danlurie @chrisfilo !
This will definitely need the additions of @gmkurtzer @GodloveD , but I got us started on a general "guide" for those interested in asking for an installation:
http://singularity.lbl.gov/install-request
It's really just a condensed list of common resources, and a starting template email. I had started writing a section of question --> answers, but realized there would be a lot to write and we already had much of it in the FAQ page, so I chose that instead. For all - please provide feedback or pull request, whichever your preference.
@danlurie, I would be interested to see some of that correspondence. I'm one of the singularity developers (at least afaik, lol) and I searched my inbox and didn't find that particular email phrase. To the best of my knowledge, @gmkurtzer worked on this (mostly) on his own at Berkeley, and developers have been all of the place, so maybe the email was just routed to the wrong person / group.
Anyway, if this template can be a start to something helpful, I'm glad to get started on it! :)
vsoch commentedon Oct 27, 2017
@gmkurtzer @danlurie @chrisfilo would you please review the template and provide feedback? When it meets your approval we can close this issue. Thanks!
KirstieJane commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Hi @vsoch THANK YOU FOR THIS FANTASTIC RESOURCE!!
(and thank you so much @chrisfilo for passing on my request and @danlurie for providing your great feedback on this issue!)
Your page and the template email are absolutely spectacular - it's absolutely everything I was hoping for!
Maybe before we close the issue, I could send it to our systems administrator and see what happens? We aren't going to be able to make it one size fits all, but if it works for Cambridge Neuroscience, that seems like a pretty good test 😄
vsoch commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Sounds good to me!
gmkurtzer commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Just have to say....
I seriously, absolutely, completely, love this idea!
KirstieJane commentedon Nov 3, 2017
@vsoch - email sent. It's 4pm on Friday so probably no reply until early next week (sorry I'm so behind with my emails!!) I'll update as soon as I hear anything 😄
gmkurtzer commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Can't wait to hear how it goes @KirstieJane!
This is probably already on @vsoch's todo list, but I'd love to have this page linked in from our "How to install Singularity" pages, and also FAQ.
Thanks!
vsoch commentedon Nov 3, 2017
I don't keep "todo" lists @gmkurtzer :)
vsoch commentedon Nov 3, 2017
I just DO.
GodloveD commentedon Nov 3, 2017
@vsoch's corporate sponsor.
vsoch commentedon Nov 3, 2017
almost! More like:
GodloveD commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Just do odle it!
KirstieJane commentedon Nov 3, 2017
We could add the link to this sentence in the Quick Start guide:
to
vsoch commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Did somebody day dooooonut it?
🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩
Yes please!
KirstieJane commentedon Nov 3, 2017
I’m on the train home and heading for a fireworks display 🎇🎆🌠🎆🎇, but I’ll put in a pull request on Monday. Thanks again ✨
vsoch commentedon Nov 3, 2017
Ok! I've made the changes that you suggested, and it would be great to get feedback and tweaks when you chat with your group. Have fun at the fireworks!
KirstieJane commentedon Nov 10, 2017
Hi - just a quick update. The Cambridge sysadmin (Stuart R) has already installed singularity on one of our high performance computing clusters, but we're waiting on authorisation from the person in charge of our neuroimaging server. I've sent Stuart a link to this thread to see if he has any comments, but basically this is a "there's no update" update because we haven't heard anything back form the neuroimaging lead. I've sent a chasing email today 😺.
KirstieJane commentedon Aug 2, 2018
So sorry to not report back to this issue in so long!
The letter is great (I've just recommended it in a workshop that @chrisfilo is leading!) and it worked for us!
I see it here (https://singularity.lbl.gov/install-request), but I can't see it on the new website? Let me know if there's anything I can do to help move it over (or maybe it's been dropped for a reason?)