Alces Clusterware

A set of tools and conventions for improving the ease of use of HPC facilities -- within both traditional clusters and HPC cloud images.

Available platforms

• Enterprise Linux 7 distributions: RHEL, CentOS, Scientific Linux (el7)
• Enterprise Linux 6 distributions: RHEL, CentOS, Scientific Linux (el6)
• Ubuntu LTS 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) (ubuntu1604)

Prerequisites

The install scripts handle the installation of all required packages from your distribution and will install on a minimal base. For Enterprise Linux distributions installation of the @core and @base package groups is sufficient.

Installation

TL;DR

One-line installation - note that you must verify you have the correct value for cw_DIST:

curl -sL http://git.io/clusterware-installer | sudo cw_DIST=el7 /bin/bash

Basic installation

Clusterware is a system-level package and must be installed by the root user.

1. Become root.

   sudo -s

2. Set the cw_DIST environment variable to match the distribution on which you are installing. Currently available options are el7, el6 and ubuntu1604:

   export cw_DIST=el7

3. Invoke installation by piping output from curl to bash:

   curl -sL http://git.io/clusterware-installer | /bin/bash

   If you want to you can download the script first. You might want to do this if you want to inspect what it's going to do, or if you're nervous about it being truncated during download:

   curl -sL http://git.io/clusterware-installer > /tmp/bootstrap.sh
   less /tmp/bootstrap.sh
   bash /tmp/bootstrap.sh

4. After installation, you can logout and login again in order to set up the appropriate shell configuration, or you can source the shell configuration manually:

   source /etc/profile.d/alces-clusterware.sh

Advanced installation

For further installation techniques, please refer to INSTALL.md.

Usage

Once installed and your shell configuration is sourced, you can access the Clusterware tools via the alces command, e.g.:

[root@localhost ~]# alces
Usage: alces COMMAND [[OPTION]... [ARGS]]
Perform high performance computing software management activities.

Commands:
  alces gridware        Compile and install gridware for local environment.
  alces help            Display help and usage information.
  alces module          An enhanced environment modules utility.
  alces session         Manage interactive VNC sessions.

For more help on a particular command run:
  alces COMMAND help

Examples:
  alces gridware list  Display available HPC software packages.
  alces module avail   Display currently available HPC software packages.

Report alces bugs to [email protected]
Alces Software home page: <http://alces-software.com/>

Contributing

Fork the project. Make your feature addition or bug fix. Send a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

What next..?

This is all great for admins of traditonal HPC clusters, but how can this help me get things done in the real world? Luckily for you Clusterware isn't just for admins, unlike tradional HPC tools its been designed from the ground up with modern day technologies in mind - why not try spinning up your own environment on AWS or your private OpenStack estate and get to experience the power of clusterware in helping you just get stuff done!

Copyright and License

AGPLv3+ License, see LICENSE.txt for details.

Copyright (C) 2007-2015 Alces Software Ltd.

Alces Clusterware is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Alces Clusterware is made available under a dual licensing model whereby use of the package in projects that are licensed so as to be compatible with AGPL Version 3 may use the package under the terms of that license. However, if AGPL Version 3.0 terms are incompatible with your planned use of this package, alternative license terms are available from Alces Software Ltd - please direct inquiries about licensing to [email protected].