Attendees

• Zach, Eric, Elaine, Greg, TomG, Scooter, TomF

On-site Genentech Hall N436A

Agenda

• Greg presents technology update
• ChimeraX 1.4 release schedule
• NIAID contract
• Review Action Items listed below

Discussion Notes

• VPN password update
  • Scooter says lab vpn passwords all need to be updated to conform to UCSF password rules.
  • Use vpnpassword program on plato to update.

• Qt 6 on CentOS 7 presented by Greg
  • Qt 6 needs newer compilers and C runtime than CentOS 7 uses.
  • Also Qt 6 builds use newer kernel system calls than CentOS 7 offers.
  • CentOS 7 end of life is May 2024.
  • UCSF Wynton cluster is using CentOS 7.
  • Have one ChimeraX download for CentOS 7 with commercial license.
  • Can run ChimeraX with Qt 6 on a CentOS 8 virtual machine on top of CentOS 7.
  • VMWare has free workstation license.
  • Some trouble to setup virtual machine so graphics drivers work.
  • Greg tried containers: singularity, docker, flatpak. None work due to newer kernel system calls used by Qt 6 builds.
  • Can update CentOS 7 kernel using ELRepo repository to get newer kernel calls. But this is probably not acceptable to users who want a standard CentOS 7 distribution.
  • When using a container, the container needs the correct system dependent graphics drivers.
  • For Wynton, Scooter suggests vis nodes could run Rocky 8 (CentOS 8), but it does raise some problems.
  • TomF suggests checking Toolshed update logs to count active CentOS 7 ChimeraX users. Greg says only Ubuntu linux distro is distinguished in logs.
  • TomG will ask PDB (RCSB and PDBe) what Linux OS they use for ChimeraX, ask SBGrid what Linux they support, ask NIH 3D what Linux distro being used.
  • Scooter suggests that Greg test virtual machine solution on an actual Centos 7 system. Greg had tested on a virtual machine CentOS 7.

• Chimera web services deprecation notice
  • Send notice to chimera-users warning that web services will be turned off in 12-18 months.
  • Currently drafted message by Elaine and Zach is fine.
  • Zach will send it.
  • Scooter disabled multifit Chimera service. Chimera gui for multifit was removed years ago.

• Poster printer
  • Scooter will have Epson printer repair person look at poster printer.

• VizVault projector
  • TomF looking for projector vendor that will allow returns if projector does not work in our room. Difficult to find.

• PyQt license renewal
  • TomF will renew PyQt license, expiring April 7.

Action Items

• Move toolshed to it's own IP address and it's own Apache instance -- Greg/Scooter
• Set up toolshed test instance (UCSF only) -- Greg/Scooter
• Clean up VirtualHosts on our web servers -- Greg/Scooter
• Move webservices to https only and extensively test chimera to make sure it works
• Create self-signed certificate for webservices-test -- ongoing, Greg has run into a weird error
• Document new vpn setup on Linux -- Scooter
• Set up 2-factor authentication for hal2 vpn -- Scooter
• Audit followup -- Scooter