Spack Usage Example

Spack is a package manager for supercomputers, Linux, and macOS. It makes installing scientific software easy. With Spack, you can build a package with multiple versions, configurations, platforms, and compilers, and all of these builds can coexist on the same machine.

Creating and Using Ecosystem

Flight Env provides quick setup methods to create a spack software ecosystem.

To install and use spack:

• Activate the flight system.
• Create the spack installation for the user:

  [flight@chead1 ~]$ flight env create spack
  Creating environment spack@default
     > ✅ Verifying prerequisites
     > ✅ Fetching prerequisite (spack)
     > ✅ Extracting Spack hierarchy (spack@default)
     > ✅ Bootstrapping Spack environment (spack@default)
  Environment spack@default has been created
  

• Activate the spack ecosystem:

  [flight@chead1 ~]$ flight env activate spack
  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$
  

• Check that spack can be run:

  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ spack --version
  spack 0.12.1
  

Installing and Running Perl

An example workflow using perl is demonstrated below.

• View available versions:

  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ spack list perl
  ==> 148 packages.
  perl                          perl-extutils-pkgconfig     perl-math-cdf                    perl-sub-uplevel
  perl-algorithm-diff           perl-file-copy-recursive    perl-math-cephes                 perl-svg
  perl-app-cmd                  perl-file-listing           perl-math-matrixreal             perl-swissknife
  perl-array-utils              perl-file-pushd             perl-module-build                perl-task-weaken
  perl-b-hooks-endofscope       perl-file-sharedir-install  perl-module-implementation       perl-term-readkey
  <-- snip -->
  
  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ spack info perl
  Package:   perl
  
  Description:
      Perl 5 is a highly capable, feature-rich programming language with over
      27 years of development.
  
  Homepage: http://www.perl.org
  
  Tags:
      None
  
  Preferred version:
      5.26.2     http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.26.2.tar.gz
  
  Safe versions:
      5.28.0     http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.28.0.tar.gz
      5.26.2     http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.26.2.tar.gz
  

• Install specific version:

  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ spack install perl@5.26.2
  ==> Installing pkgconf
  ==> Searching for binary cache of pkgconf
  ==> Warning: No Spack mirrors are currently configured
  ==> No binary for pkgconf found: installing from source
  ==> Fetching http://distfiles.alpinelinux.org/distfiles/pkgconf-1.4.2.tar.xz
  <-- snip -->
  ==> Successfully installed perl
    Fetch: 0.83s.  Build: 2m 31.21s.  Total: 2m 32.04s.
  [+] /home/flight/.local/share/flight/env/spack+default/opt/spack/linux-centos7-x86_64/gcc-4.8.5/perl-5.26.2-wavwojlef7lshvx2awf4zze2lrx5l7l4
  

• Check installation location:

  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ module load perl-5.26.2-gcc-4.8.5-wavwojl
  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ which perl
  ~/.local/share/flight/env/spack+default/opt/spack/linux-centos7-x86_64/gcc-4.8.5/perl-5.26.2-wavwojlef7lshvx2awf4zze2lrx5l7l4/bin/perl
  

• Install perl library (this may prompt for initial cpan configuration, once configuration is complete then the library will be installed):

  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ cpan File::Slurp
  Loading internal null logger. Install Log::Log4perl for logging messages
  Reading '/home/flight/.cpan/Metadata'
    Database was generated on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 14:41:02 GMT
  Running install for module 'File::Slurp'
  <-- snip -->
  

• Check installation worked:

  <spack> [flight@chead1 ~]$ cpan File::Slurp
  Loading internal null logger. Install Log::Log4perl for logging messages
  Reading '/home/flight/.cpan/Metadata'
    Database was generated on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 14:41:02 GMT
  File::Slurp is up to date (9999.27).