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Chapter 5: Scali Universe
Figure 5-1 illustrates how the different pieces fit together. The plugins are all part of
the binary distribution (rpm) of the Scali Universe GUI and will therefore run on the
same system as the GUI no matter where the managed system is located. Plugins are
loaded dynamically on demand - a demand determined by the licensing and
capabilities of the managed system. When new plugins are loaded they will show up
as additional menu items in the Scali Universe MainWindow.
The general idea is that the Scali Universe GUI is a somewhat “fat client” for the
Universe management system. Available features and licensing are properties of the
managed systems, but will be reflected in the GUI on a per system basis. This means
that the GUI itself is free from licensing restrictions, something which enables you to
install copies wherever it seems feasible. Your home-office, your portable, the system
console and so on.
All communication between the Universe GUI and the managed systems, even the
terminal emulators, runs through a single secure encrypted socket connection. This is
the only connection needed for both local and remote cluster systems, providing full
remote management capabilities.
5.2 Getting started with Scali Universe
5.2.1 Prerequisites
The only prerequisites for running Scali Universe is that the machine you are using
has network access to the frontends of the Scali systems you want to use. If you want
to use the 3D monitoring options you must also have an OpenGL 1.2 compatible library
installed. On Linux systems this is provided by the Mesa version 3.2 or newer. You
should also consider a graphics card which provides hardware acceleration of OpenGL
under your operating environment.
5.2.2 Installation
The Scali Universe GUI is installed on the frontend node as part of the SSP
installation, but in most cases the frontend is not your local workstation so you would
want to install it locally too. After SSP installation you will find the ScaDesk software
package in the repository /opt/scali/pkg/<platform>/ on the frontend node. The
ScaDesk name is a relic from the time the Scali Universe GUI was called the Scali
Desktop. To install the package on Linux systems use the rpm package manager
program like this:
# rpm -ivh ScaDesk.Linux2.i86pc-<version>.rpm
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Scali System Guide Version 3.0