Coldfront - Resource Allocation System

Coldfront is an open source resource allocation system designed to provide a central portal for administration, reporting, and measuring scientific impact of HPC resources. Coldfront was created to help HPC centers manage access to a diverse set of resources across large groups of users and provide a rich set of extensible meta data for comprehensive reporting. Coldfront is written in Python and released under the GPLv3 license.

Features

• Allocation/Subscription based system for managing access to resources
• Collect Project, Grant, and Publication data from users
• Define custom attributes on resources and subscriptions
• Email notifications for expiring/renewing access to resources
• Integration with 3rd party systems for automation and access control
• Center director approval system and annual project reviews

Quick Install

1. Coldfront requires Python 3.6, memcached, and redis.

CentOS (7.5)

Install EPEL then install required packages:

sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install python36 python36-devel memcached redis

Ubuntu (16.04)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.6 python3.6-venv memcached redis-server

2. Clone Coldfront in a new directory and create a Python virtual environment for Coldfront

mkdir coldfront_app
cd coldfront_app
git clone https://github.com/ubccr/coldfront.git
python3.6 -mvenv venv

3. Activate the virtual environment and install the required Python packages

source venv/bin/activate
cd coldfront
pip install wheel
pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Copy config/local_settings.py.sample to config/local_settings.py.

cp config/local_settings.py.sample config/local_settings.py

Open config/local_settings.py and update the following:

• Update SECRET_KEY. Consider making the length at least 50 characters long.
• Update TIME_ZONE if necessary

5. Copy config/local_strings.py.sample to config/local_strings.py and update if desired.

cp config/local_strings.py.sample config/local_strings.py

6. Run initial setup

python manage.py initial_setup

7. Setup an admin user

python manage.py createsuperuser

8. Optional: Add some test data

python manage.py load_test_data

9. Start development server

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

10. Point your browser to http://localhost:8000

You can log in as admin with password test1234. You can log in as a PI using username ccollins with password test1234. You can log in as center director using username michardson with password test1234.

Password for all users is also teset1234.

Directory structure

• coldfront
  • core - The core Coldfront application
    • field_of_science
    • grant
    • portal
    • project
    • publication
    • resource
    • subscription
    • user
    • utils
  • libs - Helper libraries
  • plugins - Plugins that can be configured in Coldfront
    • freeipa
    • iquota
    • ldap_user_search
    • mokey_oidc
    • slurm
    • system_monitor

License

Coldfront is released under the GPLv3 license. See the LICENSE file.