Conference call notes 20160413

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Notes on the 49th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday April 13th 2016 (5pm - 5.30pm CEST)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (7):

• Damian Alvarez Mallon (JSC, Germany)
• Markus Geimer (JSC, Germany)
• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
• Alan O'Cais (JSC, Germany)
• Bart Oldeman (McGill University, Canada)
• Jean-Guillaume Piccinali (CSCS, Switzerland)
• Robert Schmidt (OHRI, Canada)

Agenda

• extensive amount of module use leading to slowdowns
  • cfr. https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/1661
• support for hiding toolchains
  • https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1683
• update on RPATH support + options for configuration interface
  • cfr. https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/651
• update of support for PGI as toolchain compiler
  • https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1342

Notes

module use

• statistics on module commands in framework test suite: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/946#issuecomment-203850217
  • ~10k calls to use for full test suite, consumes half of time needed for test suite
• 'dumb' use of module use when ModulesTool instance is initialised to (re)construct $MODULEPATH
• fix is on the radar for EB 2.8.0

RPATH

• WIP PR @ https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1613
• see also https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/651
• interface(s) for enabling RPATH?
  • CLI option --rpath => use RPATH to link to dependencies
  • easyconfig parameter: rpath = True => use RPATH to link to dependencies
  • also through environment? $EBRPATHLIBX11=yes defined by libX11 module?
• concerns about making environment too big
  • e.g. for libX11 (& co)
• do a mock up of the implementation to see how the generated module would look like
• different aspects: ways of configuring to use RPATH, actual implementation of support for RPATH linking, sanity check, ...
• RPATH would make a lot of sense for e.g. Qt: X11 libs become build dependencies
• make this a recurring item on conf call

Support for hiding toolchains

• use case Markus: hiding GCCcore, only GCC visible
• cfr. WIP PR: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1683
  • sticking to --hide-deps (as opposed to also supporting --hide-toolchains) seems like a more sensible thing to do, since GCCcore is both used as a dep and as a toolchain...
  • also support hidden_toolchain = True in easyconfigs?
  • tests still missing (Kenneth can help here)
• also support hidden = True in easyconfig files (orthogonal issue)
• support --consider-hidden-modules to resolve deps/toolchains to consider both visible and hidden modules for deps/toolchains
  • would be a big help in avoiding reinstalling stuff that's already available (non-) hidden...

PGI-based toolchains

• PR for PGI support in toolchain is pretty much ready: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1342
• also related PRs, e.g. to combine PGI & MKL: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1664, https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-easyblocks/pull/866
• missing easyconfig PRs for PGI-based toolchains
• Bart: PGI+OpenMPI(+BLAS/LAPACK?)
• JSC: PGI+MVAPICH2+MKL
• JSC: issues with OpenBLAS (details?)
• Bart: upcoming PR for PGI 16.3
• target for EB 2.8.0

Q&A

• Markus: update for Score-P/Scalasca, update for easyblock
  • detection "I'm on a Cray" => through toolchain family & CRAYPE constant