Server

Taverna Server 2.x alpha is scheduled for release in July 2010. Please see our Roadmap for details on the full Taverna Server release schedule.

Taverna Server 1.7.x combines a Remote Execution Service with the Remote Execution plugin for Taverna Workbench 1.7.x to give you the possibility to set up a dedicated server for executing workflows remotely. The user can submit a workflow for executionnfrom Taverna Workbench 1.7.x, detach, and check the workflow execution status later either from the Workbench or from a Web page.

Running a remote execution service securely

This information was supplied by Jeffrey L Tilson. It refers to the 1.7.1 version but should also be true for 1.7.2.

Let us denote the Remote Execution Engine running on a “server” system as REE.

These directions are loosely based on the blog of Marlon Pierce. There are additions, however, to account for the REE.

  1. Install the REE into Tomcat 5.5 per the instructions.
  2. Define an SSL connector ( in my case on port 8443)
  3. From the “client”, connect to the server:8443 and export the certificate. In Firefox, this process requires: 1) accepting the certificate permanently, 2) installing the Firefox plugin to export certificates, 3) export the certificate to a file.
  4. From the “client”, import that cert to a keystore of choice. For Taverna 1.7.1+execute-remote plugin to work, you must specify the keystore environment variables, e.g. KEYSTORE_DIR, etc.
  5. On the “server”, you need to install the same certificate into a “server” keystore so the forked REE-taverna jobs can connect back to port 8443. If you do not, a job launched from the “client” will launch, queue, and initialise, but then hang without apparent error. The job will never finish (”never” being defined as t > my patience threshold).
  6. On the “server”, specify the KEYSTORE_DIR, etc, variables.