12. Maintainers/Developers Section

12.1. Manual software installations

The following manual software installations may or may not be required as prerequisites, depending on the specific platform. For configurable/user systems, please consult Section 3, for preconfigured systems please consult Section 6. Note that for preconfigured systems, the following one-off installations are only necessary for the maintainers of the preconfigured installations, users do not have to repeat any of these steps.

12.1.1. git-lfs

Building git-lfs with spack isn’t straightforward as it requires go-bootstrap and go language support, which many compilers don’t build correctly. We therefore require git-lfs as an external package. On many of the HPC systems, it is already available as a separate module or as part of a git module. On macOS and Linux, it can be installed using brew or other package managers (see Sections 6.1 and 6.2 for examples). The following instructions install git-lfs on a CentOS 7.9 system from the OS rpm:

module purge
cd /my/path/to/spack-stack/
mkdir -p git-lfs-2.10.0/src
cd git-lfs-2.10.0/src
wget --content-disposition https://packagecloud.io/github/git-lfs/packages/el/7/git-lfs-2.10.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm/download.rpm
rpm2cpio git-lfs-2.10.0-1.el7.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv
mv usr/* ../

Following this “installation”, create modulefile from template doc/modulefile_templates/git-lfs.

12.1.2. Miniconda (legacy)

miniconda can be used to provide a basic version of Python that spack-stack uses to support its Python packages. This is not recommended on configurable systems (user workstations and laptops using GNU compiler) where Python gets installed by spack. But any system using Intel compilers with spack-stack will need an external Python to build ecflow with Python bindings (because ecflow requires a boost serialization function that does not work with Intel, a known yet ignored bug), and then both Python and ecflow are presented to spack as external packages. Often, it is possible to use the default (OS) Python if new enough (3.9+), or a module provided by the system administrators. If none of this works, use the following instructions to install a basic Python interpreter using miniconda:

The following is for the example of miniconda_ver="py39_4.12.0" (for which python_ver=3.9.12) and platform="MacOSX-x86_64" or platform="Linux-x86_64"

cd /path/to/top-level/spack-stack/
mkdir -p miniconda-${python_ver}/src
cd miniconda-${python_ver}/src
wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-${miniconda_ver}-${platform}.sh
sh Miniconda3-${miniconda_ver}-${platform}.sh -u -b -p /path/to/top-level/spack-stack/miniconda-${python_ver}
eval "$(/path/to/top-level/spack-stack/miniconda-${python_ver}/bin/conda shell.bash hook)"
conda install -y -c conda-forge libpython-static

After the successful installation, create modulefile /path/to/top-level/spack-stack/modulefiles/miniconda/${python_ver} from template doc/modulefile_templates/miniconda and update MINICONDA_PATH and the Python version in this file.

12.1.3. qt (qt@5)

Building qt with spack isn’t straightforward as it requires many libraries related to the graphical desktop that are often tied to the operating system, and which many compilers don’t build correctly. We therefore require qt as an external package. On many of the HPC systems, it is already available as a separate module or provided by the operating system. On macOS and Linux, it can be installed using brew or other package managers (see Sections 6.1 and 6.2 for examples).

On HPC systems without a sufficient Qt5 installation, we install it outside of spack with the default OS compiler and then point to it in the site’s packages.yaml. The following instructions install qt@5.15.2 on Discover SCU16 in /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/qt-5.15.2/5.15.2/gcc_64.

mkdir -p /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/qt-5.15.2/src
cd /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/qt-5.15.2/src
wget --no-check-certificate http://download.qt.io/official_releases/online_installers/qt-unified-linux-x64-online.run
chmod u+x qt-unified-linux-x64-online.run
./qt-unified-linux-x64-online.run

Sign into qt, select customized installation, choose qt@5.15.2 only (uncheck all other boxes) and set install prefix to /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/qt-5.15.2. After the successful installation, create modulefile /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/modulefiles/qt/5.15.2 from template doc/modulefile_templates/qt and update QT_PATH in this file.

Note

The dependency on qt is introduced by ecflow, which at present requires using qt@5 - earlier or newer versions will not work.

Note

On air-gapped systems, the above method may not work (we have not encountered such a system so far).

Note

If ./qt-unified-linux-x64-online.run fails to start with the error qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display and a role account is being used, follow the procedure described in https://www.thegeekdiary.com/how-to-set-x11-forwarding-export-remote-display-for-users-who-switch-accounts-using-sudo to export the display. A possible warning xauth:  file /ncrc/home1/role.epic/.Xauthority does not exist can be ignored, since this file gets created by the xauth command.

12.1.4. ecFlow (with GUI and Python)

Building ecFlow with spack is pretty tricky, because it requires functions from the boost serialization library that do not build cleanly with the Intel classic compilers (see https://github.com/USCiLab/cereal/issues/606 for a description of the problem of Intel with json cereal). When using the Intel compilers on HPC systems, it is therefore necessary to build ecFlow with the GNU compilers, preferably the same version that is used as the C++ backend for Intel, outside of spack-stack and make it available as a module. The build of ecFlow described below links against this boost library statically, therefore it does not interfere with boost built by spack-stack for other applications. ecFlow also uses Python3 and qt5.

Note

Installing ecFlow with conda, brew, etc. is not recommended, since these install a number of packages as dependencies (e.g. numpy, dynamically-linked boost) that may interfere with the spack software stack.

After loading the required modules for this system (typically the same gcc used as backend for Intel or for GNU spack-stack builds, cmake, qt5, Python3), follow these instructions to install ecFlow with the graphical user interface (GUI) and Python3 API. See also https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/ECFLOW/ecflow5.

mkdir -p /lustre/f2/pdata/esrl/gsd/spack-stack/ecflow-5.8.4/src
cd /lustre/f2/pdata/esrl/gsd/spack-stack/ecflow-5.8.4/src
wget https://confluence.ecmwf.int/download/attachments/8650755/ecFlow-5.8.4-Source.tar.gz?api=v2
wget https://boostorg.jfrog.io/artifactory/main/release/1.78.0/source/boost_1_78_0.tar.gz
mv ecFlow-5.8.4-Source.tar.gz\?api\=v2 ecFlow-5.8.4-Source.tar.gz
tar -xvzf boost_1_78_0.tar.gz
tar -xvzf ecFlow-5.8.4-Source.tar.gz
export WK=/lustre/f2/pdata/esrl/gsd/spack-stack/ecflow-5.8.4/src/ecFlow-5.8.4-Source
export BOOST_ROOT=/lustre/f2/pdata/esrl/gsd/spack-stack/ecflow-5.8.4/src/boost_1_78_0

# Build static boost (to not interfere with spack-stack boost)
cd $BOOST_ROOT
./bootstrap.sh 2>&1 | tee bootstrap.log
$WK/build_scripts/boost_build.sh 2>&1 | tee boost_build.log

# Build ecFlow
cd $WK
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/lustre/f2/pdata/esrl/gsd/spack-stack/ecflow-5.8.4 2>&1 | tee log.cmake
make -j4 2>&1 | tee log.make
make install 2>&1 | tee log.install

Create modulefile /lustre/f2/pdata/esrl/gsd/spack-stack/modulefiles/ecflow/5.8.4 from template doc/modulefile_templates/ecflow and update ECFLOW_PATH in this file.

Note

For Cray systems, for example NRL’s Narwhal, NOAA’s Gaea C5, or NCAR’s Derecho, the following modifications are necessary: After extracting the ecflow tarball, edit ecFlow-5.8.4-Source/build_scripts/boost_build.sh and remove the following lines:

if [ "$PE_ENV" = INTEL ] ; then
   tool=intel
fi
if [ "$PE_ENV" = CRAY ] ; then
   tool=cray
fi

Note

Further on Narwhal, the cmake command for ecbuild must be told to use the GNU compilers:

CC=gcc CXX=g++ FC=gfortran cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/ecflow/installation 2>&1 | tee log.cmake

Note

Further, on Gaea C5, one needs to pass the correct python3 executable to the cmake command:

cmake .. -DPython3_EXECUTABLE=`which python3` -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/ecflow/installation 2>&1 | tee log.cmake

Note

Finally, on Casper, Derecho, or any other system with gcc@12.2.0, one needs to patch file ecflow-5.8.4/src/ecFlow-5.8.4-Source/ACore/src/Passwd.cpp by adding #include <ctime> below line #include "Passwd.hpp" before running make.

12.1.5. MySQL (server and client; optional)

For certain limited use cases, we need to provide mysql through spack-stack. We do not build mysql with spack, since it depends on specific versions of the boost library and C++ standards that make our large environments very complicated and often don’t build on older systems. Instead, we identify the default glibc of the system, obtain the binary tarball from the MySQL Community Downloads page and make it available to spack as an external package. Alternatively, the default MySQL software can be installed using the OS package manager, provided that it is a recent enough version (8.x). The following instructions are for installing MySQL using the community tarball:

  1. Check the glibc version by executing ldd --version

ldd (GNU libc) 2.17

  1. Download and unpack the correct tarball, in this case option “Linux - Generic (glibc 2.17) (x86, 64-bit), Compressed TAR Archive Minimal Install 8.0.31”

cd /path/to/spack-stack/
mkdir -p mysql-8.0.31/src
cd mysql-8.0.31/src
wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-8.0/mysql-8.0.31-linux-glibc2.17-x86_64-minimal.tar.xz
tar -xvf mysql-8.0.31-linux-glibc2.17-x86_64-minimal.tar.xz
# This moves the content of directory "mysql-8.0.31-linux-glibc2.17-x86_64-minimal" one level up, next to the "src" directory
mv mysql-8.0.31-linux-glibc2.17-x86_64-minimal/* ..
rmdir mysql-8.0.31-linux-glibc2.17-x86_64-minimal

  1. Create modulefile /path/to/spack-stack/modulefiles/mysql/8.0.31 from template doc/modulefile_templates/mysql and update MYSQL_PATH in this file.

12.1.6. Texlive (TeX/LaTeX)

Building texlive isn’t straightforward as it has many dependencies. Since it is only used to generated documentation for spack-stack (and other projects), i.e. not to compile any code, it makes no sense to build it with spack. We therefore require texlive or any other compatible TeX/LaTeX distribution as an external package.

On many of the HPC systems, it is already available as a separate module or as part of the default operating system. On macOS, the MacTeX distribution provides a full and easy-to-install TeX/LaTeX environment (see Section 6.1). On Linux, texlive can be installed using the default package manager (see Section 6.2).

12.2. Optional step for sites with a preconfigured spack mirror

To check if a mirror is configured, look for local-source in the output of

spack mirror list

If a mirror exists, add new packages to the mirror. Here, /path/to/mirror is the location from the above list command without the leading file://

spack mirror create -a -d /path/to/mirror

If this fails with git lfs errors, check the site config for which module to load for git lfs support. Load the module, then run the spack mirror add command, then unload the module and proceed with the installation.

12.3. Pre-configuring sites

12.3.1. Preface/general instructions

Preconfigured sites are defined through spack configuration files in the spack-stack directory configs/sites, for example configs/sites/orion. All files in the site-specific subdirectory will be copied into the environment into envs/env-name/site. Site-specific configurations consist of general definitions (config.yaml), packages (packages.yaml), compilers (compilers.yaml), modules (modules.yaml), mirrors (mirrors.yaml) etc. These configurations overwrite the common configurations that are copied from configs/common into envs/env-name/common.

The instructions below are platform-specific tasks that only need to be done once and can be reused for new spack environments. To build new environments on preconfigured platforms, follow the instructions in Section 3.5.

Note that, for official installations of new environments on any supported platform, the spack install command should be invoked with the --source and --verbose arguments, i.e.:

spack install --source --verbose

12.3.2. MSU Orion

On Orion, it is necessary to change the default umask from 0027 to 0022 so that users not in the group of the role account can still see and use the software stack. This can be done by running umask 022 after logging into the role account.

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After installing miniconda, and loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4. Note that the default/system qt@5 can be used on Orion.

module purge
module load python/3.9.2
module load cmake/3.22.1
module load gcc/10.2.0

12.3.3. MSU Hercules

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library, using an available Qt5 installation. After loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4 to install ecflow in /work/noaa/epic/role-epic/spack-stack/hercules/ecflow-5.8.4. NOTE: do NOT include the Qt5 module dependency in the ecflow modulefile, as it is only needed at build time (and causes issues with zlib/tar if the depedency is kept in the modulefile).

module purge
module load qt/5.15.8
openmpi

Because of difficulties with the default openmpi on Hercules, we build openmpi outside of spack and provide it as an external package. It is necessary to load the gcc compiler module and the zlib module for consistency. The configuration options are mostly adopted from the default OpenMPI installations that were done by the system administrators using spack (many of them are default values), except that we use internal hwloc and pmix. Create modulefile openmpi from template doc/modulefile_templates/openmpi.

./configure \
    --enable-shared \
    --disable-silent-rules \
    --disable-builtin-atomics \
    --with-pmi=/opt/slurm \
    --enable-static \
    --enable-mpi1-compatibility \
    --without-hcoll \
    --without-psm2 \
    --without-knem \
    --without-verbs \
    --without-psm \
    --without-cma \
    --without-ucx \
    --without-mxm \
    --without-fca \
    --without-xpmem \
    --without-ofi \
    --without-cray-xpmem \
    --without-sge \
    --without-lsf \
    --without-loadleveler \
    --without-alps \
    --without-tm \
    --with-slurm \
    --disable-memchecker \
    --with-pmix=internal \
    --with-zlib=/apps/spack-managed/gcc-12.2.0/zlib-1.2.13-p3sxbyfgvvjy7jx4kizib2jwvhm4s6l4 \
    --with-hwloc=internal \
    --disable-java \
    --disable-mpi-java \
    --with-gpfs=no \
    --without-cuda \
    --enable-wrapper-rpath \
    --disable-wrapper-runpath \
    --disable-mpi-cxx \
    --disable-cxx-exceptions \
    --with-wrapper-ldflags="-Wl,-rpath,/apps/spack-managed/gcc-11.3.1/gcc-12.2.0-7cu3qahzhsxpauy4jlnsbcqmlbkxbbbo/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/12.2.0 -Wl,-rpath,/apps/spack-managed/gcc-11.3.1/gcc-12.2.0-7cu3qahzhsxpauy4jlnsbcqmlbkxbbbo/lib64" \
    --prefix=/work/noaa/epic/role-epic/spack-stack/hercules/openmpi-4.1.6/gcc-12.2.0-spack 2>&1 | tee log.config
make VERBOSE=1 -j4
make check
make install

12.3.4. NASA Discover SCU16

On Discover SCU16, miniconda, qt, and ecflow need to be installed as a one-off before spack can be used. When using the GNU compiler, it is also necessary to build your own openmpi or other MPI library, which requires adapting the installation to the network hardware and slurm scheduler.

miniconda

Follow the instructions in Section 12.1.2 to create a basic miniconda installation and associated modulefile for working with spack. Don’t forget to log off and back on to forget about the conda environment.

qt (qt@5)

The default qt@5 in /usr is incomplete and thus insufficient for building ecflow. After loading/unloading the modules as shown below, refer to Section 12.1.3 to install qt@5.15.2 in /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/scu16/qt-5.15.2 (note: it is currently installed in /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/qt-5.15.2; an upcoming large system update will require is to rebuild anyway).

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After installing miniconda, qt5, and loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4.

module purge
module load cmake/3.28.2
module load comp/gcc/12.1.0
module use /discover/swdev/jcsda/spack-stack/modulefiles
module load miniconda/3.10.13
module load qt/5.15.2

12.3.5. NASA Discover SCU17

On Discover SCU17 ecflow needs to be installed as a one-off before spack can be used.

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4 (cont’d below).

module purge
module load cmake/3.28.2

The following workaround is required after installing ecflow and creating the modulefile: edit path/to/ecflow/bin/ecflow_ui and change the last few lines to (i.e. prepend the LD_PRELOAD command):

if [ $ECFLOWUI_BT != "no" ]
then
    LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 catchsegv ${ECFLOWUI_USER_START_CMD} "$exe"
else
    LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 ${ECFLOWUI_USER_START_CMD} "$exe"
fi

12.3.8. NCAR-Wyoming Casper

On Casper, there are problems with newer versions of the Intel compiler/MPI library when trying to run MPI jobs with just one task (mpiexec -np 1) - for JEDI, job hangs forever in a particular MPI communication call in oops. This is why an older version Intel 19 is used here.

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4.

module purge
export LMOD_TMOD_FIND_FIRST=yes
module load gnu/12.2.0

12.3.9. NCAR-Wyoming Derecho

libfabric (temporary)

Until CISL fixes its unusual way of setting up Cray module environments, it is necessary to create a libfabrics module to be able to use the cray-mpich MPI library without Cray compiler wrappers. Create a module file based on the template doc/modulefile_templates/libfabric in directory /glade/work/epicufsrt/contrib/spack-stack/derecho/libfabric. This module is currently listed in the dependency modules for the cray-mpich MPI provider in the Derecho site config. It is also necessary to “include” (a confusing term, it used to be “whitelist”) the cray-mpich module in Derecho’s modules.yaml file, because the CISL cray-mpich module cannot be loaded without loading their compiler modules.

cray-pals (temporary)

Until CISL fixes its unusual way of setting up Cray module environments, it is necessary to create a cray-pals (parallel application launcher) module to be able to find mpirun etc. Create directory /glade/work/epicufsrt/contrib/spack-stack/derecho/cray-pals and copy file /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/core/cray-pals/1.2.11.lua into this directory.

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4 to install ecflow. Be sure to follow the extra instructions for Derecho in that section.

module purge
export LMOD_TMOD_FIND_FIRST=yes
module load gcc/12.2.0
module load cmake/3.26.3

12.3.10. NOAA NCO WCOSS2

WORK IN PROGRESS

12.3.11. NOAA Parallel Works (AWS, Azure, Gcloud)

See configs/sites/noaa-aws/README.md. These instructions are identical for all three vendors.

12.3.12. NOAA RDHPCS Gaea C5

On Gaea C5, miniconda, qt, and ecflow need to be installed as a one-off before spack can be used.

qt (qt@5)

The default qt@5 in /usr is incomplete and thus insufficient for building ecflow. After loading/unloading the modules as shown below, refer to Section 12.1.3 to install qt@5.15.2 in /ncrc/proj/epic/spack-stack/qt-5.15.2. Section 12.1.3 describes how to export the X windows environment in order to install qt@5 using the role account.

module unload intel-classic cray-mpich PrgEnv-intel
module load gcc/10.3.0
module load PrgEnv-gnu/8.3.3
ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After installing qt5 and loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4. Because of the dependency on miniconda, that module must be loaded automatically in the ecflow module (similar to qt@5.15.2-c5). Ensure to follow the extra instructions in that section for Gaea C5 in /ncrc/proj/epic/spack-stack/ecflow-5.8.4.

Ensure to follow the extra instructions in that section for Gaea.

module load PrgEnv-gnu/8.3.3
module use /ncrc/proj/epic/spack-stack/modulefiles/
module load qt/5.15.2
module load python/3.9.12
module load cmake/3.23.1

12.3.13. NOAA RDHPCS Hera

On Hera, miniconda must be installed as a one-off before spack can be used. When using the GNU compiler, it is also necessary to build your own openmpi or other MPI library.

miniconda

Follow the instructions in Section 12.1.2 to create a basic miniconda installation and associated modulefile for working with spack. Don’t forget to log off and back on to forget about the conda environment.

openmpi

It is easier to build and test openmpi manually and use it as an external package, instead of building it as part of spack-stack. These instructions were used to build the openmpi@4.1.5 MPI library with gcc@9.2.0 as referenced in the Hera site config. After the installation, create modulefile openmpi/4.1.5 using the template doc/modulefile_templates/openmpi. Note the site-specific module settings at the end of the template, this will likely be different for other HPCs.

module purge
module load gnu/9.2.0
./configure \
    --prefix=/scratch1/NCEPDEV/jcsda/jedipara/spack-stack/openmpi-4.1.5 \
    --with-pmi=/apps/slurm/default \
    --with-lustre
make VERBOSE=1 -j4
make check
make install

Hera sits behind the NOAA firewall and doesn’t have access to all packages on the web. It is therefore necessary to create a spack mirror on another platform. This can be done as described in section Section 12.4 for air-gapped systems.

12.3.14. NOAA RDHPCS Jet

Note that the target architecture for Jet must be set to core2 to satisfy differences between the various Jet partitions and ensure that installations run on the front-end nodes (xjet-like) will function on the other partitions.

miniconda

Follow the instructions in Section 12.1.2 to create a basic miniconda installation and associated modulefile for working with spack. Don’t forget to log off and back on to forget about the conda environment.

module use /lfs4/HFIP/hfv3gfs/spack-stack/modulefiles
module load miniconda/3.9.12
# Need a newer gcc compiler than the default OS compiler gcc-4.8.5
module load gnu/9.2.0

12.3.15. UW (Univ. of Wisconsin) S4

gnu (module only)

The gnu/9.3.0 module provided by the system administrators is broken. To create a usable version, turn /data/prod/hpc-stack/modulefiles/core/gnu/9.3.0.lua into a simple environment module (tcl) in /data/prod/jedi/spack-stack/modulefiles/gnu.

mpich (module only)

The mpich/4.0.1 module provided by the system administrators is broken. To create a usable version, turn /data/prod/hpc-stack/modulefiles/compiler/gnu/9.3.0/mpich/4.0.1.lua into a simple environment module (tcl) in /data/prod/jedi/spack-stack/modulefiles/mpich.

miniconda

Follow the instructions in Section 12.1.2 to create a basic miniconda installation and associated modulefile for working with spack. Don’t forget to log off and back on to forget about the conda environment.

ecflow

ecFlow must be built manually using the GNU compilers and linked against a static boost library. After installing miniconda, and loading the following modules, follow the instructions in Section 12.1.4.

module purge
module use /data/prod/jedi/spack-stack/modulefiles
module load miniconda/3.9.12
module load gcc/9.3.0

12.3.16. Amazon Web Services Parallelcluster Ubuntu 20.04

See configs/sites/aws-pcluster/README.md.

12.4. Creating/maintaining spack mirrors

Spack mirrors allow downloading the source code required to build environments once to a local directory (in the following also referred to as source cache), and then use this directory for subsequent installations. If a package cannot be found in the mirror (e.g. because a newer version is required), it will automatically be pulled from the web. It won’t be added to the source cache automatically, this is a step that needs to be done manually.

Spack mirrors also make it possible to download the source code for an air-gapped machine on another system, then transferring the entire mirror to the system without internet access and using it during the installation.

12.4.1. Spack mirrors for local reuse

Since all spack-stack installations are based on environments, we only cover spack mirrors for environments here. For a more general discussion, users are referred to the Spack Documentation.

  1. Create an environment as usual, activate it and run the concretization step (spack concretize), but do not start the installation yet.

  2. Create the spack mirror in /path/to/spack-mirror.

spack mirror create -a -d /path/to/spack-source

  1. If the spack mirror already exists, then existing packages will be ignored and only new packages will be added to the mirror.

  2. If not already included in the environment (e.g. from the spack-stack site config), add the mirror:

spack mirror list
spack mirror add local-source file:///path/to/spack-source

The newly created local mirror should be listed at the top, which means that spack will search this directory first.

  1. Proceed with the installation as usual.

12.4.2. Spack mirrors for air-gapped systems

The procedure is similar to using spack mirrors for local reuse, but a few additional steps are needed in between.

  1. On the air-gapped system: Create an environment as usual, activate it and run the concretization step (spack concretize), but do not start the installation yet.

  2. Copy the file spack.lock (in envs/env-name/) to the machine with full internet access using scp, for example.

  3. On the machine with full internet access: Load the basic external modules, if using a machine that is preconfigured for spack-stack (see Section 3) and make sure that git supports lfs (if necessary, load the external modules that spack-stack also uses).

  4. On the machine with full internet access: check out the same version of spack-stack, run setup.sh, and then the following sequence of commands. The mirror will be created in directory ./spack/var/spack/environments/air_gapped_mirror_env, while the mirror source code downloaded based on spack.lock will be placed in the directory specified by the -d argument passed to spack mirror create (below).

spack env create air_gapped_mirror_env spack.lock
cd envs/air_gapped_mirror_env/
spack env activate .
spack mirror create -a -d ./mirror/

  1. On the air-gapped system: Copy the directory from the system with internet access to the local destination for the spack mirror. It is recommended to use rsync to avoid deleting existing packages, if updating an existing mirror on the air-gapped system. For example, to use rsync to copy the mirror directory from the machine with full internet access to the air-gapped system (with the rsync initiated from the air-gapped system):

rsync -av <username>@<source-host>:<path-to-mirror-directory-on-source-host> <destination-path-on-air-gapped-system>

6.. On the air-gapped system: Add the mirror to the spack environment’s mirror list, unless already included in the site config.

spack mirror add locals-source  file:///path/to/spack-source
spack mirror list

The newly created local mirror should be listed at the top, which means that spack will search this directory first.

  1. On the air-gapped system: Proceed with the installation as usual.

12.5. Testing new packages

12.5.1. Using spack to test/add packages

The simplest case of adding new packages that are available in spack-stack is described in Section 3.5. As mentioned there, it is advised to take a backup of the spack environment (and install directories if outside the spack environment directory tree). It is also possible to chain spack installations, which means creating a test environment that uses installed packages and modulefiles from another (e.g. authoritative) spack environment and build the packages to be tested in isolation.

12.5.1.1. Chaining spack-stack installations

Chaining spack-stack installations is a powerful way to test adding new packages without affecting the existing packages. The idea is to define one or more upstream spack installations that the environment can use as dependencies. This is described in detail in Section 5.

12.5.2. Testing/adding packages outside of spack

Sometimes, users may want to build new versions of packages frequently without using spack, for example as part of an existing build system (e.g. a cmake submodule or an ecbuild bundle). Also, users may wish to test developmental code that is not available and/or not ready for release in spack-stack. In this case, users need to unload the modules of the packages that are to be replaced, including their dependencies, and build the new version(s) themselves within the existing build system or manually. The loaded modules from the spack environment in this case provide the necessary dependencies, just like for any other build system.

Note

Users are strongly advised to not interfere with the spack install tree. The environment install tree and module files should only be modified using spack.

Users can build multiple packages outside of spack and install them in a separate install tree, for example MY_INSTALL_TREE. In order to find these packages, users must extend their environment as required for the system/the packages to be installed:

export PATH="$MY_INSTALL_TREE/bin:$PATH"
export CPATH="$MY_INSTALL_TREE/include:$PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MY_INSTALL_TREE/lib64:$MY_INSTALL_TREE/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
# macOS
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MY_INSTALL_TREE/lib64:$MY_INSTALL_TREE/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"
# Python packages, use correct lib/lib64 and correct python version
export PYTHONPATH="$MY_INSTALL_TREE/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH"

Python packages can be added in various ways:

  1. Using python setup.py install --prefix=$MY_INSTALL_TREE ... or python3 -m pip install --no-deps --prefix=$MY_INSTALL_TREE .... The --no-deps options is very important, because pip may otherwise attempt to install dependencies that already exist in spack-stack. These dependencies are not only duplicates, they may also be different versions and/or compiled with different compilers/libraries (because they are wheels). This approach requires adding the appropriate subdirectories of $MY_INSTALL_TREE to the different search paths, as shown above.

  2. Using Python virtual environments. Two important flags need to be passed to the command that creates the environment --system-site-packages and --without-pip. After activating the environment, packages can be installed using python3 -m pip without having to specify --no-deps or --prefix, and without having to manually modify PATH, PYTHONPATH, etc.

python3 -m venv --system-site-packages --without-pip $MY_INSTALL_TREE
source $MY_INSTALL_TREE/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install ...

Note

Users are equally strongly advised to not use conda or miniconda in combination with Python modules provided by spack-stack, as well as not installing packages other than poetry in the basic miniconda installation for spack-stack (if using such a setup).