Workaround for apelclient 1.8.0-1 or earlier

This only applies for apelclient 1.8.0-1 or earlier, If you use apelclient >= 1.8.1-0, this is not necessary.

Special note: Until now, in normal operations, the APEL system has depended on the top level BDII to get a benchmark for a CE; a slot power value in HEPSPEC06 that all accounting transmissions for the CE must assume. Unfortunately, this is picked up in GLUE1, and HTCondor-CE gives out only GLUE2 data, so this is no longer an option. Instead, for HTCondor-CE, we have to preload the APEL mysql database with this data. The procedure for doing this is given below. Note that this procedure must be run after apelparser has run (perhaps for the first time) but before apelclient.

At the SQL prompt:

select id from Sites;
64

Remember the site id, whatever it is, for use in the insert below.

At the SQL prompt:

select distinct CEID from BlahdRecords ;
12854

Remember the CEID, whatever it is, for use in the insert below.

At the SQL prompt:

> insert into SpecRecords (SiteID,CEID,StartTime,StopTime,ServiceLevelType,ServiceLevel) values(64,12853,'0000-00-00 00:00:00','2100-00-00 00:00:00','HEPSPEC',10.0);

Put in the appropriate values for your site id and CEID. The example assumes you submit with a benchmark of 10 HS06.

So that's the work around for the BDII problem.

Set up and run the apelclient to make the job records

Now we can produce the actual job records (and optionally SSM them into the APEL portal.) To do this, you'll need a client config something like this:

[db]
hostname = hepgrid95.ph.liv.ac.uk
port = 3306
name = apelclient
username = apelclient
password = someSuperSecretPassword

[spec_updater]
enabled = false
site_name = UKI-NORTHGRID-LIV-HEP
lrms_server = lrms_server = hepgrid6.ph.liv.ac.uk:9618/hepgrid6.ph.liv.ac.uk-condor
spec_type = HEPSPEC
spec_value = 10.0

[joiner]
enabled = true
local_jobs = false

[unloader]
enabled = true
dir_location = /var/spool/apel/
send_summaries = false
withhold_dns = false
interval = latest
send_ur = false

[ssm]
enabled = false

[logging]
logfile = /var/log/apel/client.log
level = INFO
console = true

Just run /usr/bin/apelclient to get ssm records. In this example, sending via ssm is disabled. You can change that when you think it's right, and set up the ssm config file as appropriate.

-- SteveJones - 2019-08-08