GT 3.9.4 RFT: User's Guide

Introduction

RFT Service implementation in 3.9.4 uses standard SOAP messages over HTTP to submit and manage a set of 3rd party GridFTP transfers and to delete files using GridFTP. The user creates a RFT resource by submitting a list of URL pairs of  files that need to be transferred/deleted  to RFT Factory service. The user also specifies the time to live for the resource the user is creating to a GT 3.9.4 Container in which RFT is deployed and configured. The resource is created after the user is properly authorized and authenticated. RFT service implementation exposes operations to control and manage the transfers (the resource). The operations exposed by both RFT factory and RFT service are briefly described below. The resource the user created also exposes the state of the transfer as a resource property to which the user can either subscribe for changes or poll for the changes in state periodically using standard command line clients.

Command-line tools

Command line tool: rft for RFT transfers

Tool description

Submits a transfer to the Reliable File Transfer Service and prints out the status of the transfer on the console.

Command syntax and options

rft  [-h <host-ip of the container defaults to localhost> 
-port <port, defaults to 8080>
-l <lifetime for the resource default 60mins> 
-m <security mechanism. 'msg' for secure message or 'conv' for 
 secure conversation and 'trans' for transport. Defaults to 
   secure transport.>
-p <protection type, 'sig' signature and 'enc' encryption, 
 defaults to signature >
-z <authorization mechanism can be self or host. default self> 
-file <file to write EPR of created Reliable  File Transfer Resource]> 
-f <path to the file that contains list of transfers>

This is a sample transfer file that the command-line client will be able to parse. It can also be found in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/share/globus_wsrf_rft_client/ along with other samples for directory transfers and deletes (lines starting with # are comments): 

#true=binary false=ascii
true
#Block size in bytes
16000
#TCP Buffer size in bytes
16000
#Notpt (No thirdPartyTransfer)
false
#Number of parallel streams
1
#Data Channel Authentication (DCAU)
true
# Concurrency of the request
1
#Grid Subject name of the source gridftp server
/DC=org/DC=doegrids/OU=People/CN=Ravi Madduri 134710
#Grid Subject name of the destination gridftp server
/DC=org/DC=doegrids/OU=People/CN=Ravi Madduri 134710
#Transfer all or none of the transfers
false
#Maximum number of retries
10
#Source/Dest URL Pairs
gsiftp://localhost:5678/tmp/rftTest.tmp
gsiftp://localhost:5678/tmp/rftTest_Done.tmp

Limitations

This command line client is very dumb and simple and does not do any intelligent parsing of various command line options and the options in the sample transfer file. It works fine if used in the way documented here.

Command-line tool: rft-delete for RFT deletes

Tool description

This command-line tool is used to submit a list of files to be deleted.

Command and options 

rft-delete [-h <host-ip of the container default localhost> 
-port <port, defaults to 8080>
-l <lifetime for the resource default 60mins> 
-m <security mechanism. 'msg' for secure message or 'conv' for 
 secure conversation and 'trans' for transport. Defaults to 
   secure transport.>
-p <protection type, 'sig' signature and 'enc' encryption, 
 defaults to signature >
-z <authorization mechanism can be self or host. default self> 
-file <file to write EPR of created Reliable  File Transfer Resource]> 
-f <path to the file that contains list of transfers>

This is a sample file that the command line client will be able to parse, it can also be found in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/share/globus_wsrf_rft_client/ along with other samples for directory transfers and deletes (lines starting with # are comments): 

# Subject name (defaults to host subject)
  /DC=org/DC=doegrids/OU=People/CN=Ravi Madduri 134710
  gsiftp://localhost:5678/tmp/rftTest_Done.tmp
  gsiftp://localhost:5678/tmp/rftTest_Done1.tmp

Limitations

No limitations with this commandline tool.


Graphical user interfaces

There is no GUI for RFT service in this release.


Troubleshooting

  • Always have a valid proxy before using command line RFT clients.
  • Make sure to provide suitable options to the client especially for the Termination time so that the resource does not get destroyed before finishing the transfers.