Install Linux

Requirements

• System requirements are available for Flame, Lustre, Flare, and Flame Assist.
• The installation package for the application to install.
• Root access to the system. The default root account password on an Autodesk workstation is password.

Migrate an existing workstation

If you have an existing workstation and wish to keep your settings, back up the files and directories and restore them after installing the new OS. If upgrading from from CentOS 7 to CentOS 8, you must perform a clean install. The /usr/discreet path is archived, and not /opt/Autodesk.

Install CentOS

1. Disconnect all other disks, e.g. secondary drives, RAID disks, SAN volumes.

2. Download the Autodesk CentOS Installation ISO from the Autodesk Flame System Requirements page.

3. Make bootable media by burning the ISO to a DVD, or to a USB drive as follows:

   1. Insert the USB, and in a terminal run dmesg. It should output something like [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk. In this case indicating that the USB is attached at /dev/sdb.

   2. Check the drive is not mounted, in this case mount | grep sdb should output nothing.

   3. Make the drive bootable drive the following.

      sudo dd if=[path-to-ISO] of=[path-to-device]

      A directory listing (e.g. ls /dev) might show sdb, sdb1, sdb2, sdb3, etc., but use sdb, or what was reported by dmesg in step 1.

4. Insert the installation media (USB or DVD), boot the workstation and press F9 (on an HP, or F12 on a Dell) at startup to select the appropriate boot device.

5. At the CentOS "Welcome" screen, using the arrows keys, select "Autodesk [Product] Workstation" and press Enter. The operating system will be installed along with all of the relevant extra packages provided by Autodesk.

   Important: If the installer ever fails to correctly detect your system drive, it asks you to partition your drive. Do not configure it using LVM. Follow the instruction listed here.

6. After the installation, at the reboot prompt, reboot the workstation. Once the workstation restarts the boot sequence, remove the installation media to avoid booting from it again.

User management

Change the default root password. Log in as root, using the default password password, and in a terminal run the passwd command.

With the 2022 release, Flame Family users are no longer created by the Flame Family installer. You must now create your own user to manage access. Directory services like FreeIPA or NIS may also be used for user access control and other services on Linux and Mac. Users and groups can be managed in throught the GUI on KDE (Centos 7) or GNOME (CentOS 8).

Application shortcuts

Application shortcuts can be added to your Desktop. In the File System Navigator, go to /opt/Tangent/bin/ and drag the TangentMapper icon to your Desktop. Select Link Here. This creates a new short cut on your Desktop. The icon itself can be customized by right-clicking and selecting Properties.

Enhanced security via OS user permissions

As a multi-user system, Linux includes user permissions to protect users from each other, and to secure data. There are three ownership classes: user, group, and other. For each of these classes, permissions can be applied. They are: read, write, and execute.

The default Flame Family installation on CentOS includes a Flame user account that can access all files on a system. For sites without security requirements, there is nothing to configure. For facilities requiring a higher level of security, the environment can be configured with custom permissions for users and groups. Security can, for example, be implemented as follows:

• If a Flame Family application is launched from the CentOS start menu > Autodesk > Applications or the desktop icon, by default, content created will have full read and write permissions. A system administrator can change this behaviour with the umask (file mode creation mask) value in /opt/Autodesk/<application>/bin/startApplication. The default value is 000 which makes newly-created files and directories accessible to all users and groups. As an example, a umask of 002 would mean group members could create and modify data files; those outside the group could read, but not write. A umask of 007 would exclude everyone outside the group.
• Using CentOS's user account creation tools, a system administrator can create users and groups with defined permissions. When defined, it is then possible to run a Flame Family application and any content created by the applications will respect the permissions of users and groups. However note that if the application is launched via the /opt/Autodesk/<application>/bin/startApplication script, the umask settings in that script will override the user's OS permissions.
• If the application is run using the binary application from the application's bin directory, content created will follow the umask of the current user.

Umask per user can be set in /etc/bashrc or in the /etc/profile file for all users. It contains three octal values. The first digit sets permissions for the user, the second for the group, and the third for other. Example umask values:

• 000: allows read, write, and execute permission for all; 666 (rw-rw-rw-) for files and 777 (rwxrwxrwx) for directories.
• 022: usually the default setting, allows read write and execute for the file's owner, read for everyone else. Gives permissions 644 (rw-r--r-) for files and 755 (rwxr-xr-x) for directories.
• 077: allows read, write, and execute permission for the file's owner, but prohibits for everyone else; 600 (rw-------) for files and 700 (rwx------) for directories.

Limitation on the use of OS group membership on macOS. In the following, user refers to the operating system user, not the Flame user profile. On Linux Flame can change a user's effective group ID as need. However macOS does not allow Flame permission to do this. This limitation means:

• When creating a project, the project's group is set to the effective group of the user that launched Flame. It cannot be set by the user.
• When opening a project, the effective group ID of the user that launched Flame must match the group of the project.

To work with these projects, or create a project with the appropriate group:

1. Get the group of the current user with the command id -Gn.
2. Assign an effective group to the user. This group defines the Group for new projects, or must match an existing project's Group for you to open it.
3. Enter: newgrp group_name_copy_pasted_from_list_above
4. Launch Flame from the command line: Enter: /opt/Autodesk/flame_2018.1.pr78/bin/startApplication
5. Now, you can create projects with the group selected by the newgrp command. Or open projects that were previously created using that group.

Lustre interoperability

If your workflow involves sharing files with Lustre, then the Lustre user must have the same umask as the Flame user.

Network configuration

Configuration will depend on the local network, but following are some hints:

• /etc/hosts: add the hostname and IP address.
• /etc/sysconfig/network: add values for HOSTNAME, NETWORKING, GATEWAY, and NISDOMAIN
• /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (if using the device eth0) update values for IPADDR, NETMASK, and ONBOOT
• The hostnname can be set manually with sudo hostnamectl set-hostname <your hostname>.

To Manually Partition Your Hard Drive if the Installation Fails

Peform the following procedure if the CentOS installer fails to correctly detect your system drive.

1. Open Installation Destination.
2. Select the disk where to install CentOS.
3. In Other Storage Options select I will configure partitioning.
4. If the disk is already partitioned, erase existing partitions by selecting them and then clicking -- in the bottom left corner.
5. From the drop-down menu New CentOS installation, change LVM to Standard Partition
6. Create 3 new Standard partitions by clicking the +. Refer to the table below.
7. Click Done and proceed with the installation. It will wipe all the data that was previously on the selected disk.

System drive partitions