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Building packages on NREL HPC for individual or project use.#

This training module will walk through how to build a reasonably complex package, OpenMPI, and deploy it for use by yourself or members of a project.

  1. Acquire the package and set up for build

  2. Configure, build, and install the package

  3. Setting up your own environment module

Why build your own application?#

  • Sometimes, the package version that you need, or the capabilities you want, are only available as source code.

  • Other times, a package has dependencies on other ones with application programming interfaces that change rapidly. A source code build might have code to adapt to the (older, newer) libraries you have available, whereas a binary distribution will likely not. In other cases, a binary distribution may be associated with a particular Linux distribution and version different from Kestrel's or Eagle's. One example is a package for Linux version X+1 (with a shiny new libc). If you try to run this on Linux version X, you will almost certainly get errors associated with the GLIBC version required. If you build the application against your own, older libc version, those dependencies are not created.

  • Performance; for example, if a more performant numerical library is available, you may be able to link against it. A pre-built binary may have been built against a more universally available but lower performance library. The same holds for optimizing compilers.

  • Curiosity to know more about the tools you use.

  • Pride of building one's tools oneself.

  • For the sheer thrill of building packages.