Top Tools Every EOSC Synergy Developer Should Know [2022]

udocker

udocker is a basic user tool to run simple docker containers in user space without requiring root privileges. It supports download and execution of docker containers by non-privileged users in Linux systems where docker is not available. It can be used to pull and execute docker containers in Linux batch systems and interactive clusters that are managed by other entities such as grid infrastructures or externally managed batch or interactive systems.

udocker does not require any type of privileges nor the deployment of services by system administrators. It can be downloaded and executed entirely by the end user. The limited root functionality provided by some of the udocker execution modes is either simulated or provided via user namespaces. udocker is a wrapper around several tools and libraries to mimic a subset of the docker capabilities including pulling images and running containers with minimal functionality.

The performance of udocker beats - depending on the execution mode - most other container execution engines.

udocker Webinar on EGI and demos:

More information about udocker can be found at:

• Installation manual: indigo-dc.github.io/udocker/installation_manual
• User manual: indigo-dc.github.io/udocker/user_manual
  
• Github repository: github.com/indigo-dc/udocker

ssh-oidc

ssh-oidc consists of a set of tools that allows (you guessed it) ssh with OIDC. This tool allows you to authenticate and log in to remote machines using your institution (or any other organisation) credentials instead of a using a secret key or password.

Focused on usability, ssh-oidc is divided around several tools and libraries to mimic a subset of the popular ssh capabilities. The two main components are an SSH client wrapper: mccli designed to run on clients computers and the service motley-cue for mapping OIDC identities to local identities (to be run on the server where users are planned to log in). ssh-oidc is mainly supported for Linux distrbutions of Debian, Ubuntu and Centos. But it is even possible to configure putty with a mccli extension to additionally run on clients using Windows.

More information about ssh-oidc can be found at:

• General repository: github.com/EOSC-synergy/ssh-oidc
• mccli manual: dianagudu.github.io/mccli
  
• motley cue manual: dianagudu.github.io/motley_cue
• Putty extension: git.scc.kit.edu/m-team/putty/-/tree/oidc-support