Hello, this is my first blog post so be kind :-)

If you are running an Avid Isis 5000, 5500 or 7000, perhaps you need to install a linux machine to access Isis Workspace for backup or archive purpose. So today, we are going to install a client ISIS client 4.7.3 on a Linux Centos 6.6.

First, we need to download a iso image of the distribution. You can find mirrors from centos web site.  I’ve choose to use a ‘netinstall’ iso image because i’m using my own repository so installation will be faster.

For this test, i’m using VirtualBox on macosx computer.

You need at least X11 to run AvidISISClient because even if you don’t need GUI to mount workspace, you need it the first time to get Virtual Name of the Isis server from the client application (don’t ask me why, i don’t know but if it’s possible to mount workspace from command line without this procedure tell me, i’m curious). So choose a desktop installation at minimum.

Once the installation is completed, we need to connect to the web Avid Management Console of your Isis server and download the linux installer. I’m using version 4.7.3 of the client (AvidISISClient_el6.x86_64_4.7.3_15400.bin).

Centos 6.6 is sheep with kernel version 2.6.32-504. Avid Isis Client use fuse and need a special kmod-fuse package provide with the installer. Lastest kmod-fuse include in the client installer is for kernel 2.6.32-431. So, we need to downgrade the kernel.

So download and install it:

curl -O http://vault.centos.org/6.5/updates/x86_64/Packages/kernel-2.6.32-431.29.2.el6.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh --force kernel-2.6.32-431.29.2.el6.x86_64.rpm

If you do a yum update now, your kernel will be upgrade to the latest available. That’s not what we want. We need to tell yum to exclude kernel packages from update:

sudo echo "exclude=kernel*" >> /etc/yum.conf

Now, we can reboot to use this kernel.

After the reboot, go back to the folder where you download the avid isis client installer and decompress it:

mkdir AvidISISClient_4.7.3_package
sed -e "1,/^exit$/d" AvidISISClient_el6.x86_64_4.7.3_15400.bin | tar --directory=AvidISISClient_4.7.3_package -xvzf - > /dev/null

and install all packages needed:

cd AvidISISClient_4.7.3_package
sudo rpm -ivh kmod-fuse-2.6.32-431.avid.5.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh kmod-myri10ge-1.5.3.p1-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh fuse-libs-2.8.3-4.1.avid.el6.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh AvidISISClient-4.7.3-15400.el6.x86_64.rpm

As you can see, we have to install myricom 10ge kernel module even if you don’t have one because of dependencies.

If installation is ok, you can go to the ‘Applications’ menu of your Gnome session, in the ‘System tools’ sub-menu, you’ll find ‘Avid ISIS Client Manager’ app icon. Launch it. You need the root password for running the application.

If you multiple Isis servers, you need to set ‘Remote Host Settings’ correctly point to your isis servers ip, Virtual System Name will appear. Otherwise, Virtual Name appear automaticaly. You can test the connection by entering your credentials. Default Avid ISIS Client use ‘/mnt’ as root path for mounting workspace.

Now if you have correct permissions on a workspace you can mount it from the command line where you want in your filesystem.

Example, my user is ‘avid’ with password ‘pass’, my Virtual Name Server is « AVIDsys » and the workspace name is « TEST »; so the command line will be:

 /sbin/mount.avidfos -o username=avid,password=pass AVIDsys/TEST /srv/TEST

or

 /sbin/mount.avidfos avid:pass@AVIDsys/TEST /srv/TEST

The folder « TEST » don’t need to exists. The command create it for us.

Now you can find a lot of thing to do with that. Personally, i’ve a script (need a new article to explain) to make incremental backup every night for all workspaces that name include ‘proj’. With this, i’ve a Avid Isis ‘Time Machine’ :-).