Conference call notes 20161123

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Notes on the 64th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday November 23rd 2016 (5pm - 6pm CET)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (8):

• Damian Alvarez Mallon (JSC, Germany)
• Pablo Escobar (UniBas, Switzerland)
• Markus Geimer (JSC, Germany)
• Fotis Georgatos (Illumina, UK)
• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
• Alan O'Cais (JSC, Germany)
• Åke Sandgren (Umeå University, Sweden)
• Robert Schmidt (OHRI, Canada)

Agenda

• report on EasyBuild-related activities @ SC16
• agenda for EasyBuild User Meeting (Feb 8-10 2017 @ JSC)
  • https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/2nd-EasyBuild-User-Meeting
• RPATH support: known issues
  • https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/1992
• Q&A

Notes

EasyBuild @ SC16

• talk by Damian at HUST'16 workshop

  • http://hpcugent.github.io/easybuild/files/eb-jsc-hust16.pdf
  • focus on large use case, which was well received
  • Spack talk was more basic, less a 'real' use case
    • edit: to clarify, the above does not imply that we don't consider Spack a real use case, but rather that the Spack talk was more focused on the tool, not on how the tool is applied in a real production environment, as opposed to the EasyBuild talk which discussed an actual use case of deploying EasyBuild at a large HPC site (sorry Todd! ;))
  • interest from ORNL in deploying similar solution
  • opportunity for collaboration with Spack on support for pulling version updates?
    • already WIP in Spack?
    • stand-alone library/tool that both Spack and EasyBuild
    • Fotis: a tool like this exists already: https://github.com/fedora-infra/anitya
      • release monitoring project

• Lmod/XALT talks by Robert McLay at TACC booth

  • update on Lmod v7 + XALT v2

• Spack tutorial

  • http://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial_sc16.html => really nice tutorial!
  • consider submitting tutorial for ISC17 or SC17 on EasyBuild+Lmod?
    • tutorial materials mainly via EasyBuild documentation for maximum value after actual tutorial session

EasyBuild User Meeting

• https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/2nd-EasyBuild-User-Meeting

• Feb 8-10 2017 @ Jülich Supercomputing Centre (Germany)

• Damian: registration via indico, in the works

  • attendance is free, but registration is required to get security clearance
  • coffee & lunch covered by JSC

• draft agenda (subject to change), all times are Central European Time (CET)

Wednesday February 8th 2017

• [10am] keynote: Containers in HPC with Singularity (Michael Bauer, University of Michigan, US)
  • introduction to Singularity, see http://singularity.lbl.gov/
• [11pm] EasyBuild: past, present & future (Kenneth Hoste, HPC-UGent)
  • update on recent developments + outlook into the (near) future
• [1.30pm] EasyBuild vs The World of Shiny New Things (Robert Schmidt, OHRI, Canada)
  • talk on how EasyBuild relates to containers (Docker, Singularity, rkt, ...), Nix, Spack, conda, ...
• [2.30pm] site presentations by JSC, CSCS, & anyone interested
  • how is EasyBuild being used at site X?
• [4pm] Update on Lmod & XALT (Robert McLay, TACC) [remote presentation]

Thursday February 9th 2017

• [9am] Tutorial: implementing easyblocks (Kenneth Hoste, HPC-UGent)
• [10am - 5pm] hackathon (hands-on)

Friday February 10th 2017

• [9am - 5pm] hackathon (hands-on)

RPATH support

• https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/1992
• limited 'fork bomb' when installing https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/2010
• opt-out option to avoid using RPATH for some easyconfigs?
  • in a fully automated way
  • support for a configure option to specify exceptions/site customisations
    • bzip2*.eb:--disable-rpath --filter-env-vars=''
  • could also be a toolchain option to disable rpath

Other

• Åke: infinite loop issue with Lmod & HMNS
  • will try to reproduce & open an issue
• Markus: max loop count problem by robot, cfr. https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/3678
  • will try to reproduce & open an issue
• Kenneth: EasyBuild v3.0.1 bugfix release, ETA mid next week
  • bug fixes w.r.t. RPATH support
  • maybe also https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/2005 (needs more feedback)
  • some minor software updates
• Markus: unclear why toolchain test is failing in https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1974?
• Åke: --job with GC3Pie
  • can we make 'eb' print a list of failed builds at the end?
  • workaround: check afterwards with -D (annoying when running multiple --job instances at the same time)
    • Damian: also copy back build logs for failed builds?
  • Markus: update on making GC3Pie cancel jobs if deps failed to install?
    • https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/1441
• Pablo: include a trace of where dependencies come from in output of --dry-run
  • --dep-graph works, but more details text-only would be nice(r)
  • one way would be to include numbers for each entry + specify for all deps for which pkgs they are included as a dep
  • cfr. Spack output?
    • http://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/packaging_guide.html#graphing-dependencies
  • Damian: https://github.com/mdr/ascii-graphs ?