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ucberkeley / bce

Berkeley Common Environment provides a common Linux computational environment for classwork and research.
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Figure out a way to support Staff Laptops #39

Open davclark opened 9 years ago

davclark commented 9 years ago

[I wanted to mention, @ryanlovett, I miss your old GitHub handle... ]

The general issue is that staff laptops are heavily locked down in terms of the software they can run. However, there are times when a script can replace weeks of clicking. So, it would be of high value to figure out how to enable technical staff to have access to more advanced tools (like those installed in BCE).

@ryanlovett, I'm assigning this to you, as Aaron suggested you are the best equipped to know what makes sense to do both from our perspective and also from Ben Gross' perspective.

The main issue for using BCE is that users can't install VirtualBox. If we could solve that, the rest would be solved inside VirtualBox.

An alternative would be to use a remote solution, but we'd still need to set up use for some set of tools:

But it would be great if we could get VirtualBox available with BigFix. Maybe aligning our release cycles so we standardize on the version of VirtualBox that's on BigFix (or however it's called now).

One question that I'm still not clear on: can folks install user-land programs in their own directory?

All of this came out of a conversation with @tgallag1, who is a business analyst on campus who wants to be able to run Python.

This seems quite similar to the work @agcinsf is doing in UC Purchasing, and so it might be worth roping him in as well.

cc @aculich

tgallag1 commented 9 years ago

Thanks for the call to discuss my use case, which is shared by some colleagues. I am monitoring this thread

ryanlovett commented 9 years ago

EEI did put VirtualBox into Self Service, however it may only be exposed to the "Statistics" sidebar category or the initial Casper imaging process. I will followup with Alex to find out how it is implemented. Making it broadly available this way would help staff with EEI/CSS-imaged machines, but not necessarily those whose machines are locked by other IT staff.

To host BCE in Self Service we'd need to have an unattended download and import script, which is probably doable.

Staff use of Python also suggests JupyterHub; I need to follow up with you on that.

Ryan

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 10:04 AM, tgallag1 notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks for the call to discuss my use case, which is shared by some colleagues. I am monitoring this thread

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-103593318.

agcinsf commented 9 years ago

We had this same exact problem. At first we called CSS to come and install software. I gave them a script of commands to run to install Anaconda, update it to current, and add some other modules. But when there are releases on python modules, we neither want to pay for CSS to come nor do we want to wait. So, I took a shortcut. I replaced our Berkeley laptops with UCSF laptops; which have far fewer restrictions on software installs.

I agree this is a problem for our more technical staff. Let me know how I can help!

ryanlovett commented 9 years ago

Alex Kim just moved VirtualBox from "Statitistics" into the "Community Software" category in Self Service. This means that anyone with the "Self Service" app on their Mac can install it without requiring admin rights. We will work on getting BCE up there as well so that people don't need to manually import it. Alex suggested an "Academic" category for BCE, Matlab, SPSS, etc. which makes sense. I had thought of "Data Science" though that might get confusing when/if there's a department with that name. "Science", "Research", "Numbers n' Stuff", etc.? I suppose it doesn't matter as long as there's a search box.

Ryan

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 11:02 AM, agcinsf notifications@github.com wrote:

We had this same exact problem. At first we called CSS to come and install software. I gave them a script of commands to run to install Anaconda, update it to current, and add some other modules. But when there are releases on python modules, we neither want to pay for CSS to come nor do we want to wait. So, I took a shortcut. I replaced our Berkeley laptops with UCSF laptops; which have far fewer restrictions on software installs.

I agree this is a problem for our more technical staff. Let me know how I can help!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-103615468.

paciorek commented 9 years ago

I think "Research" might be a good overall title for such a category.

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 10:16 AM, Ryan Lovett notifications@github.com wrote:

Alex Kim just moved VirtualBox from "Statitistics" into the "Community Software" category in Self Service. This means that anyone with the "Self Service" app on their Mac can install it without requiring admin rights. We will work on getting BCE up there as well so that people don't need to manually import it. Alex suggested an "Academic" category for BCE, Matlab, SPSS, etc. which makes sense. I had thought of "Data Science" though that might get confusing when/if there's a department with that name. "Science", "Research", "Numbers n' Stuff", etc.? I suppose it doesn't matter as long as there's a search box.

Ryan

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 11:02 AM, agcinsf notifications@github.com wrote:

We had this same exact problem. At first we called CSS to come and install software. I gave them a script of commands to run to install Anaconda, update it to current, and add some other modules. But when there are releases on python modules, we neither want to pay for CSS to come nor do we want to wait. So, I took a shortcut. I replaced our Berkeley laptops with UCSF laptops; which have far fewer restrictions on software installs.

I agree this is a problem for our more technical staff. Let me know how I can help!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-103615468.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-104718294.

davclark commented 9 years ago

But this use case we're discussing is usually not "research" per se, it's analysis that supports administrative needs! On May 22, 2015 10:20 AM, "Christopher Paciorek" notifications@github.com wrote:

I think "Research" might be a good overall title for such a category.

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 10:16 AM, Ryan Lovett notifications@github.com wrote:

Alex Kim just moved VirtualBox from "Statitistics" into the "Community Software" category in Self Service. This means that anyone with the "Self Service" app on their Mac can install it without requiring admin rights. We will work on getting BCE up there as well so that people don't need to manually import it. Alex suggested an "Academic" category for BCE, Matlab, SPSS, etc. which makes sense. I had thought of "Data Science" though that might get confusing when/if there's a department with that name. "Science", "Research", "Numbers n' Stuff", etc.? I suppose it doesn't matter as long as there's a search box.

Ryan

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 11:02 AM, agcinsf notifications@github.com wrote:

We had this same exact problem. At first we called CSS to come and install software. I gave them a script of commands to run to install Anaconda, update it to current, and add some other modules. But when there are releases on python modules, we neither want to pay for CSS to come nor do we want to wait. So, I took a shortcut. I replaced our Berkeley laptops with UCSF laptops; which have far fewer restrictions on software installs.

I agree this is a problem for our more technical staff. Let me know how I can help!

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-103615468.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-104718294.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ucberkeley/bce/issues/39#issuecomment-104719603.