Yum Installation from Fedora Repository

The easiest way to install Condor on a computer is to use a package manager to install it for you from a supported software repository. On Fedora, the package manager is known as Yum. Installing Condor through Yum has a lot of benefits. For one, Condor will be automatically installed in a Unix-standard folder so that you don't have to figure out where to put all of the pieces. Also, upgrading to newer software versions is very much simplified and you don't have to worry about breaking the program as much as if you were to do the upgrade manually. Since the software is provided to you through a Fedora-maintained repository, you can rest assured that the software is supported and tested by the Fedora Project and its users.

Unfortunately, installing Condor through Yum (specifically the Fedora software repository) has a few deal-breaking downsides. In our experience of installing Condor through Yum with the Fedora repository we have found that the installation lacks a few key features that would otherwise be standard in a Condor installation.

For one, the repository installation of Condor doesn't allow Condor jobs to be “Checkpointed”. This means that long-running Condor jobs that are preempted from a worker machine (usually due to a user beginning to use the machine) are not given the choice to save their current state to a file (known as “Checkpointing”) and move to a different machine. The job can stop processing and wait but if it is not allowed to resume its work (due to continued user activity) it is always killed rather than migrating to a nearby idle computer. While it is not an essential feature, it is a nice feature to have access to for long-running jobs or jobs where re-execution of a process might break the program or otherwise invalidate its results. Plus, Condor users who submit jobs to the “Standard Universe”, as is customary for most Condor systems, will find their jobs will hang and not run since the Standard Universe is unavailable.

Another downside to installing Condor from the Fedora repository is that the repository does not provide the most recent stable release of Condor. In fact, the repository provides a Condor package that is a few versions behind the current version of the Condor project. Since we do not want to have to wait forever for the Fedora Project to update the repository just to get a bug fix in a newer version, we must avoid Yum in order to stay up-to-date (ironically).

Warning: Read the above section about the cons of installing Condor through Yum before continuing. You should only use Yum if you understand the downsides of using the Condor installation from the Fedora repository, or if you're just want to get Condor running as soon as possible and don't really care.

Installing Condor through Yum is quick and easy. First, open a Terminal window.¹⁾ Then, run this command:

sudo yumex --root

Assuming you have proper sudo privileges, type in your password as prompted and press [Enter].²⁾ In YumEx, search for the “condor” package. Now, simply check the package named “condor” that matches your processor architecture and click “Apply” at the bottom.

See the Local Installation of Condor page for more information about the Condor Keyboard Daemon.

To install the Condor Keyboard Daemon (for idle detection of USB input devices), simply locate the “condor-kbdd” package in YumEx and check the listed package that matches your processor architecture.³⁾ When the package is done installing, simply add KBDD to the DAEMON_LIST in your local configuration file.

See the Firewall Configuration section of the Local Installation of Condor page about configuring a network firewall for a pool of Condor machines.