The usual way of creating, executing and managing REANA workflows is by means
of the reana-client
command-line tool. However, installing reana-client can be painful in certain
situations, for example when it conflicts with your other Python project
dependencies and you don’t want to be switching Python virtual environments all
the time. In these cases, using a fully standalone reana-client executable
would be desirable.
As of REANA 0.8.0, we have started publishing standalone reana-client
executables for Linux operating systems using the
AppImage technology. Each published application
executable bundles the reana-client command-line tool together with Python
and all the necessary dependent libraries so that the client can run fully
independently of your local environment.
You can download reana-client standalone executables from our GitHub releases
page, for example:
$ wget https://github.com/reanahub/reana-client/releases/download/0.8.1/reana-client-0.8.1-x86_64.AppImage
Then you can place the executable into some convenient directory found in your
PATH, such as $HOME/.local/bin:
$ chmod u+x ./reana-client-0.8.1-x86_64.AppImage
$ mv ./reana-client-0.8.1-x86_64.AppImage $HOME/.local/bin/reana-client-0.8.1
You will now be able to use the reana-client-0.8.1 executable from anywhere:
$ cd myanalysis
$ reana-client-0.8.1 ping
REANA server: https://reana.cern.ch
REANA server version: 0.9.0a5
REANA client version: 0.8.1
Authenticated as: John Doe <john.doe@example.org>
Status: Connected
Please note that the reana-client AppImage executable format works only on
Linux operating systems. It should be supported by all major Linux
distributions. Please let us know if you encounter any troubles on your
favourite Linux distribution.
If you are using another operating system, such as macOS, you will not be able
to use these executables. But don’t worry! We are considering creating
statically-linked cross-platform reana-client executables using Go
programming language in the near future. Stay tuned for more news later in the
year.