The MeteoSwiss Spack Deployment

Official Spack documentation Here.

Installation

!!! Please note that the package cosmo and cosmo-dycore now requires a Python version >= 3.6 !!!

CSCS users

For the cscs users a spack instance including the mch packages and the mch machine configuration files will be maintained for both tsa and daint under /project/g110/spack/user/'machine'/spack. Therefore, if you are not interested in the developement of our spack packages and config files you can directly source those instances and skip the general installation section:

# module load python >= 3.6
source /project/g110/spack/user/<machine>/spack/share/spack/setup-env.sh # cscs users

Automatically source the correct spack instance when using bash

If you want to automatically source the correct spack instance depending on the machine you are working on, you can add the following lines to your .bashrc file:

case $(hostname -s) in
      tsa-ln003) module load python/3.7.4; export SPACK_ROOT=/project/g110/spack/user/tsa_rh7.7/spack ;;
      tsa*|arolla*) module load python/3.7.4; export SPACK_ROOT=/project/g110/spack/user/tsa/spack ;;
      daint*) module load cray-python; export SPACK_ROOT=/project/g110/spack/user/daint/spack ;;
      kesch*) export SPACK_ROOT=/project/g110/spack/user/kesch/spack ;;
esac
source $SPACK_ROOT/share/spack/setup-env.sh

General

As said before a general installation is only needed if you wish to develop the mch packages/machines config files or if you are not a cscs user.

First step is to clone this repository and use the available config.sh script to install your own spack instance with the corresponding mch packages and configuration files.

Tell the script the machine you are working on using -m and where you want the instance to be installed using -i . You can also precise the spack version you want, or take the default value (last stable release).

git clone [email protected]:MeteoSwiss-APN/spack-mch.git
cd spack-mch
./config.py -m <machine> -i <spack-installation-directory> -v <version> -r <repos.yaml-installation-directory> -p <spack packages, modules & stages installation-directory> -u <ON or OFF, install upstreams.yaml>

The -r option usually needs to point to the site scope of your newly installed spack-instance, that is, $SPACK_DIR/etc/spack. It can however also be used if you are a CSCS user and do not want to have your own spack instance but still want to develop the mch-packages. In that case, you can clone the spack-mch repo, let the -i, -m options void, BUT overwrite the site scoped repos.yaml files of the maintained spack instances by installing a new repos.yaml in your user scope ~/.spack.

Careful: the repos.yaml file is always modified in a way that it points to the spack-mch package repositories from which you call the config.sh script.

Next and final step is to source your newly installed instance under $SPACK_DIR/share/spack in order to activate it.

source <spack-installation-directory>/share/spack/setup-env.sh

Basic Usage

First thing to do when using spack is to check if the package you want to install is already available:

Spack list

list and search available packages

spack list <package>

Print the whole list of spack available packages

Second thing to do is to check the information of your package using the command:

Spack info

get detailed information on a particular package

spack info <package>

Get a list of all possible building configuration available such as: version available, list of dependencies and variants. Variants are a key-feature of spack since it describes which build configuration we want (i.e COSMO with target gpu or cpu).

Third step, you want to check how your package will be installed (i.e the spec of you package and its dependencies) before actually installing it.

Spack spec

show what would be installed, given a spec

spack spec <package>@<version>%<compiler> +<variants>

Finally you can install your package, using:

Spack install

build and install packages

spack install <package>@<version>%<compiler> +<variants>

Ex:

spack install cosmo@master%pgi cosmo_target=gpu

This will clone the package, build it and install the chosen package plus all its dependencies under /scratch/$USER/spack/install/tsa (see config.yaml in the maching specific config file section for details). The build-stage of your package and its dependencies are not kept (add --keep-stage after the install command in order to keep it). Module files are also created during this process and installed under /scratch/$USER/spack/modules/

You might want to run tests after the installation of your package. In that case you can use:

Spack install --test=root

If 'root' is chosen, run package tests during installation for top-level packages (but skip tests for dependencies).

spack install --test=root cosmo@master%pgi cosmo_target=gpu

Submits the adequate testsuites for cosmo-dycore or cosmo after their installations. The results are printed out directly for cosmo-dycore but not for cosmo (you have to open the testsuite.out file). Careful: If you use the +serialize variant of cosmo, you also need to add this command to your installation command.

If you want to submit your tests manually or after the installation, you first have to use the module of your package dependencies

module use /project/g110/spack-modules/'architecture'

and then load your package module:

module load _/scratch/$USER/spack/modules/'architecture'/<package>/<version>-<hash>_

Developer guide

Spack dev-build

developer build: build from code in current working directory

cd <package_base_directory>
spack dev-build <package>@<version>%<compiler> +<variants>

If you do not want to git clone the source of the package you want to install, especially if you are developing, you can use a local source in order to install your package. In order to do so, first go to the base directory of the package and then use spack dev-build instead of spack install.

The package, its dependencies and its modules will be still installed under /scratch/$USER/spack/install & /scratch/$USER/spack/modules/ Notice that once installed, the package will not be rebuilt at the next attempt to spack dev-build, even if the sources of the local directory have changed. In order to force spack to build the local developments anytime, you need to avoid the installation phase

spack dev-build --until build <package>@<version>%<compiler> +<variants>

Spack edit

open package files in $EDITOR

spack edit <package>

Use this spack command in order to open the correspondig package.py file and edit it directly.

Machine specific config files

Are available under spack/etc/spack. Their structure is:

• compilers.yaml (all info about available compilers, machine specific compiler flags, module to load (PrgEnv) before compiling)
• packages.yaml (all info about the already installed dependencies, i.e their module names or paths)
• modules.yaml (all info about the created modules, i.e which env variable or modules should be set once loaded)
• config.yaml (specifies the main installation path and the main module installation path, where to find thebinaries etc.)
• upstreams.yaml (specifies where to find the pre-installed software, that are under /project/g110/spack-install/
• repos.yaml (specifies where to find the only mch packages that are stored in spack-mch repository)