| Table of Contents | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Overview
Singularity is a free, cross-platform and open-source computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization also known as containerization. One of the main uses of Singularity is to bring containers and reproducibility to scientific computing and the high-performance computing world.
Note: There are two strands of Singularity:
The original open-source version of Singularity managed by HPCng: (releases / github). This is what we are using.
And the Community Edition, forked by sylabs.io back in May 2021: SingularityCE (releases / github). They now also provide Pro and Enterprise editions.
Apptainer: (formerly Singularity) simplifies the creation and execution of containers, ensuring software components are encapsulated for portability and reproducibility.
Using
Use the module name singularity apptainer to discover versions available and to load the application.
Note: On teton, version 2.5.2 is currently loaded by default on a session start up, so in the message above you can see the module system is changing from version 2.5.2 to 3.8.1.
Using Singularity
Due to security/user permissions a research researcher is currently unable to build a Singularity an Apptainer container directly on the cluster. They will need to build this on their own desktop/laptop and then copy the image across onto the cluster and then run.
...
You can try using a prebuilt contain from some where else.
Consult with ARCC on building a container that provides the environment you require. We For example, we have done this with a number of researchers to provide unique R environments with a series of pre-installed R packages.
...