Coldfront - Resource Allocation System

Coldfront is an open source resource allocation system designed to provide a central portal for administration, reporting, and measuring scientific impact of HPC resources. Coldfront was created to help HPC centers manage access to a diverse set of resources across large groups of users and provide a rich set of extensible meta data for comprehensive reporting. Coldfront is written in Python and released under the GPLv3 license.

Features

• Allocation/Subscription based system for managing access to resources
• Collect Project, Grant, and Publication data from users
• Define custom attributes on resources and subscriptions
• Email notifications for expiring/renewing access to resources
• Integration with 3rd party systems for automation and access control
• Center director approval system and annual project reviews

Contact Information

If you would like a live demo followed by QA, please contact us at ccr-coldfront-admin-list@listserv.buffalo.edu. You can also contact us for general inquiries and installation troubleshooting.

If you would like to join our mailing list to receive news and updates, please send an email to listserv@listserv.buffalo.edu with no subject, and the following command in the body of the message:

subscribe ccr-open-coldfront-list@listserv.buffalo.edu first_name last_name

Quick Install

Coldfront requires Python 3.6, memcached, and redis.

CentOS (7.5)

Install EPEL then install required packages:

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install python36 python36-devel memcached redis

For Django 2.2 on CentOS 7.5+, you will also need a newer version of sqlite installed and available to the user that will run the ColdFront App.

wget https://www.sqlite.org/2019/sqlite-autoconf-3280000.tar.gz
tar -xvf sqlite-autoconf-3280000.tar.gz
cd sqlite-autoconf-3280000 || exit
./configure
make -j "$(nproc)"
sudo make install

Once installed, you will need to add /usr/local/bin to PATH (if not already there for the user that will run ColdFront. You will also need to add /usr/local/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:${PATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}

Ubuntu (16.04)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.6 python3.6-venv memcached redis-server

Clone Coldfront in a new directory and create a Python virtual environment for Coldfront

mkdir coldfront_app
cd coldfront_app
git clone https://github.com/ubccr/coldfront.git
python3.6 -mvenv venv

Activate the virtual environment and install the required Python packages

source venv/bin/activate
cd coldfront
pip install wheel
pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy config/local_settings.py.sample to config/local_settings.py.

cp config/local_settings.py.sample config/local_settings.py

Open config/local_settings.py and update the following:

• Update SECRET_KEY. Consider making the length at least 50 characters long.
• Update TIME_ZONE if necessary
• Uncomment line EMAIL_ADMIN_LIST
• Uncomment line EMAIL_DIRECTOR_EMAIL_ADDRESS

Copy config/local_strings.py.sample to config/local_strings.py and update if desired.

cp config/local_strings.py.sample config/local_strings.py

Run initial setup

python manage.py initial_setup

Optional: Add some test data

python manage.py load_test_data

Start development server

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

• Point your browser to http://localhost:8000
• You can log in as admin with password test1234.
• You can log in as a PI using username cgray with password test1234.
• You can log in as another PI using username sfoster with password test1234.

Password for all users is also teset1234.

Directory structure

• coldfront
  • core - The core Coldfront application
    • field_of_science
    • grant
    • portal
    • project
    • publication
    • resource
    • subscription
    • user
    • utils
  • libs - Helper libraries
    • plugins - Plugins that can be configured in Coldfront
      • freeipa
      • iquota
      • ldap_user_search
      • mokey_oidc
      • slurm
      • system_monitor

License

Coldfront is released under the GPLv3 license. See the LICENSE file.