How to ... setup a Hive server

This page gives you instructions about how to setup and run a Hive server.

Certificate and Authentication

• Follow UsersHowtosDevelopServices
• Notes on using SQL Server 2008 R2:
  • In the connection string the .\SQLEXPRESS should be changed to . . For example in the command to create the ASP.NET authentication database: aspnet_regsql.exe -C "data source=.;Integrated Security=SSPI" -A all -d HeuristicLab.Authentication.
  • If the above mentioned command fails with a timeout, the error could be a compatibility problem between the 2005 and 2008R2 SQL Server versions. SQL Server Management Studio offers the option in the database properties to set the compatibility level to SQL Server 2005 and this should fix the problem.
• Goto Windows Services > start Distributed Transaction Coordinator service (needed to use transactions over multiple databases)

Setup IIS

• In the Server Manager add Non-HTTP Activation in the Add Features Wizard under .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features
• Go to Windows Services and start NetTcpActivator and NetTcpPortSharing services
• Open IIS Manager
• Create an application pool (Hive-3.3, .net 4.x, integrated)
  • Open advanced settings of the application pool and select NetworkService as identity (if you don't have your own identities for IIS AppPools)
  • Set Disable Overlapping Recycle to true. This avoids that multiple AppDomains are created which causes problems in Hive-3.3.
• Create a new website (or use an existing one)
• Go to bindings of the website.
  • Add a http-binding with port 80.
  • Add a net.tcp-binding with port 808 (Binding information: 808:*)
• Create a new application within the website and call it Hive-3.3 and use the already created appPool Hive-3.3
• Open advanced settings of the application and enter http, net.tcp as enabled protocols
• Grant the usergroup IIS_IUSRS read-permissions on the application directory
• Grant the NETWORK SERVICE group read access to the certificate you created in UsersHowtosDevelopServices
• For the charting to work in the Status.aspx page, a folder for caching the images has to be created. The default, as configured in the Web.config, is C:\TempImageFiles\. Note that Network Service must have read and write permissions to this folder.
• Allow port 808 in Firewall
  • For Windows Firewall enable Windows Communication Foundation Net.TCP Listener Adapter (TCP-In) Rule in Inbound Rules

Add groups and users to the authentication db

• Open the Hive Visual Studio solution
• Click on the Hive-3.3 Web project. In the solution explorer the ASP.NET Configuration button shows up. As mentioned in UsersHowtosDevelopServices this allows to configure users and groups. On the configuration website, first add the groups:
  • Hive Administrator
  • Hive Slave
  • Hive User
  • Hive IsAllowedPrivileged
• Users can now be added to the appropriate groups.
• A special user for hive slaves must be added. This user has to be in the Hive Slave group. The default configuration is
  • User: hiveslave
  • Password: hiveslave

Webservice client setup

• All clients (slave, administration, experiment manager) have an app.config file which contains a certificate tag under <identity>. To get this value for the local server execute svcutil.exe http://localhost/Hive-3.3/HiveService.svc?wsdl. This generates the client stub for the hive webservice. In the output.config file you will find the certificate tag with the right value. Replace all keys in the hive clients with this key of your machine.

Setup Hive database

• Open the SQL Server Configuration Manager.
  • If the Configuration Manager displays Remote Procedure call failed, install SQL Service Pack 1 (​http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26727).
• Right click the SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER) and select properties.
• In the Filestream Tab enable Filestream for Transact-SQL access and Filestream for file I/O streaming access.
• Restart the service.
• Open the SQL Server Management Studio and create a new database called HeuristicLab.Hive-3.3
• Go to the Properties of the new Database.
  • Select the Filegroup page and add a new Filestream called FileStream and use it as default.
  • Go to the Files page and add a new file HeuristicLab.Hive-3.3_FileStream with type Filestream and the Filegroup FileStream you created in the previous step. Set the Path where HeuristicLab.Hive-3.3 database is located.
  • In the Options page set Recovery model(at the top) to Simple and Auto Shrink to True.
• Use the SQL Server Management Studio to open and execute the following two scripts in this order:
  • Initialize Hive Database.sql
  • Prepare Hive Database.sql
  • If you have already installed an older Hive-Server version (< 3.3.x) and want to keep your data while updating to a newer version, execute Migrate to Filestream.sql instead. You have to execute the previous steps to enable the Filestream before executing the migration script.
• All scripts can be found in HeuristicLab.Services.Hive.DataAccess\3.3\SQL Scripts\
• Use the SQL Server Management Studio to create a new login for the NETWORK SERVICE group (or the identity you defined when creating the application pool): In Object Explorer: Security -> Logins -> right click (New Login...). Next you have to add the login to the two created HeuristicLab databases (HeuristicLab.Hive-3.3, HeuristicLab.Authentication) in the Users section (in Object Explorer: Databases -> HeuristicLab.* -> Security -> Users -> right click (New User...)).

Install the Janitor Service

There are some tasks on the server which have to be executed periodically. Previously this logic was executed with the heartbeats that the slaves sent. Because this lead to performance problems there is now an own windows service with an installer. Simply copy the HeuristicLab.Services.Hive.JanitorServiceSetup-3.3.msi file to your server and install it.

Problems and solutions

• Exception Could Not Load Type System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule
  • run aspnet_regiis.exe -iru
• "HTTP-Fehler 500.19 - Internal Server Error: Dieser Konfigurationsabschnitt kann in diesem Pfad nicht verwendet werden. Dies ist der Fall, wenn der Abschnitt auf übergeordneter Ebene gesperrt ist. Die Sperrung erfolgt standardmäßig (overrideModeDefault="Deny") oder wird explizit mit einem location-Tag mit overrideMode="Deny" oder der Legacyeinstellung allowOverride="false" festgelegt."

  Konfigurationsquelle
    139:   <system.webServer>
    140:     <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
    141:       <add name="HiveServerModule" type="HeuristicLab.Hive.Server.Core.IISModules.HiveServerModule"/>
  

  • Open Visual Studio command prompt as administrator and go to %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config
  • Enter "notepad applicationHost.config"
  • Search for the line

    <section name="modules" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" overrideModeDefault="Deny" />
    

  • Change overrideModeDefault to Allow.

How to update Hive server

Updating the server is as simple as copying the new binaries into the "/bin" folder of the website. Of course changes to the database need to be done accordingly. It is no problem if there are slaves calculating during the update if it takes only a few seconds. If the update lasts longer than one minute ("SlaveHeartbeatTimeout") the slaves will be identified to be timed out as the server goes online again and their jobs will be lost.

Changing the URL of the Hive server

The default URL for Hive is ​http://services.heuristiclab.com/Hive-3.3/HiveService.svc. If you are building your own Hive server, you need to change this URL as well as the certificate string in all configuration files. This has to be done for

• the server in the Web.config
• for the HeuristicLab.Clients.Hive-3.3 project in the app.config (client endpoint)
• and the HeuristicLab.Clients.Hive.Slave-3.3 project in the app.config (client endpoint)

After this change you have to recompile everything. The slave as well as the Job Manager and Administrator should now connect to your Hive server.