Creating a CernVM-FS repository¶
Although creating a new CernVM-FS repository and making it available to the world is not in scope for this tutorial, we do want to give a (very) brief overview of what that entails.
For more information on starting with CernVM-FS from scratch to create your own CernVM-FS repository, see the introductory tutorial to the CernVM-FS that was organised at the 6th EasyBuild User Meeting (Jan'21).
Stratum 0 + creating repository¶
To create a new CernVM-FS repository, you will need to set up a Stratum 0 server, or find an existing one that is willing to host your repository.
On a Stratum 0 server, a new repository can be created with:
sudo cvmfs_server mkfs example.domain.tld
For more information on this, see the CernVM-FS documentation, or the second section of the CernVM-FS introductory tutorial.
Publishing content¶
After creating the repository, you should add some content to it via the update procedure that is documented here, which involves starting a transaction, making changes, and then publishing those changes.
Managing repository¶
To optimize metadata access for client systems, you may need to look into creating nested catalogs.
If files are frequently removed from the repository, you should consider enabling garbage collection.
Public Stratum 1 replica servers¶
To distribute your repository, you should set up one or more public Stratum 1 replica servers, much like we also did in this tutorial (see the Accessing repositories - Private Stratum 1 replica server section).
More information on this is available in the CernVM-FS documentation as well.
(next: Appendix: Terminology)