So I'm busy working with my team at Wind on some new installer work and I need to set up ClearCase to get access to the bits that go into the install. I have this spanking new machine, Quad-core Intel, 4GB RAM, 750GB drive. I really got it so I can run multiple virtual machines on it for testing. But if I could run ClearCase on it too, then I could use it for install builds too.
But my issue is that ClearCase is only supported on certain enterprise versions of Linux. But I want to try the latest KVM support in Ubuntu. So I first installed Ubuntu 64-bit and gave it a try. Ubuntu's 32-bit support in 64-bit installs is horrible. You have to manually install the 32-bit libraries. That probably should be automatic, but then they are trying to fit on a single CD so maybe it's too much. Unfortunately even with the 32-bit libraries, the perl engine ClearCase ships with crashes. So forget that.
So next up, I tried Fedora 8. It's much closer to the supported Red Hat Enterprise and might have a better chance. And besides, there are some good Eclipse guys at Red Hat and I should be supporting them. The 32-bit libraries were automatically installed (but then it is a 3+ GB DVD). So I got a lot farther. After tricking the ClearCase install scripts into accepting Fedora as a "supported" kernel, I got as far as building the MVFS kernel module.
As I tried to fix those errors, I started to feel like I was porting their module for them. And it was a lot of work. We were going from version 2.6.18 of the Linux kernel to 2.6.24, but given how many APIs changed, it felt like I was going to 3.0 or something. At any rate, it doesn't feel like something I should be investing my time in so I gave up on that.
So I tried the supported RHEL 5. You know what, after installing it and rebooting it. No network. RHEL 5 didn't have a driver for the ethernet on the new machine. For crying out loud (again...). Unfortunately, it's back to Windows for me. At least for now. Hopefully I can tweak ClearCase to make it fast enough to be usable.
This is the most unintelligible blog post I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteClearcase is a nightmare. Could you run it in a vm so you don't have to pollute your host OS's kernel?
ReplyDeleteThose filesystem layers are not official API, I believe, so supporting a new version of Linux for MVFS is a significant investment.
ReplyDeleteThis was one instance where you should have heeded the warning of the installer!
As a guy who currently have to use the binary vmware kernel, and the binary nvidia graphics driver together my hint is:
ReplyDeleteJust sacrifice the ~500MB ram and run a 32bit kernel insted.
While 64bit linux itself does work quite well, the support from third party binary software is less then good when using a 64bit kernel.
Actually running ClearCase on RHEL5 in a VM was my first choice, but I need SMP so I can use the 4 CPUs to test multi-threading the install builder and I've been having trouble picking a good VM system to get that all to work. Maybe when I get Fedora 8 back on the box I'll try KVM again.
ReplyDeleteYou should be able to run a 32 bit VM on a 64 bit host. Just go back to your original ubuntu 64 bit, then install RHEL 5 on a VM using KVM.
ReplyDeleteAh, didn't see the SMP requirement. Have you tried Xen? It's not too difficult to assign multiple CPU's to a Xen VM. I haven't tried it in KVM yet.
ReplyDeleteI have a similar setup on my system at home. quad core, 4G ram, two 320G SATA drives running in RAID 1.
Clearcase is definitely a nightmare. Good luck solving the issue.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to try openSUSE because it comes with good automatic support for 32bit apps but since CC is designed for last year's linux, it might not help.
ReplyDeleteI'd go this route: Install a 32bit OS in a VM running on your 64bit box. Try VMware ESX. If that fails, give VirtualBox 1.6 a go.
Both should be able to give you SMP.
If all else fails, invest $300 in a cheap box which just runs CC in a corner ;)
Tell me about it.. I want to update my kernel to 2.6.24 from 2.6.18.. I can't even build the ccase module against those headers!!
ReplyDeleteAhh well, back to 2.6.18 on my debian box and a likely enet driver bug.. in any case, debian + 2.6.18 + autofs + ccase works fine for me on the WRS network. (Look me up as gws).
Perhaps a better title would be "Frustrating Day in ClearCase-land".
ReplyDelete