Drinking from the Firehose
For a complete list of all installed software, see NodePackageList
Most Commonly Used Software
OpenMPI
Version 2.0.1
Scilab
Version 5.4.0
R
Version 3.3.1
Modules
We provide a small number of R modules installed by default, these are generally modules that are needed by more than one person.
Installing your own modules
To install your own module, login to Beocat and start R interactively
R
Then install the package using
install.packages("PACKAGENAME")
Follow the prompts. Note that there is a CRAN mirror at KU - it will be listed as "USA (KS)".
After installing you can test before leaving interactive mode by issuing the command
library("PACKAGENAME")
Running R Jobs
You cannot submit an R script directly. 'qsub myscript.R' will result in an error. Instead, you need to make a bash script that will call R appropriately. Here is a minimal example. We'll save this as submit-R.qsub
#!/bin/bash
#$ -l mem=1G
# Now we tell qsub how long we expect our work to take: 15 minutes (H:MM:SS)
#$ -l h_rt=0:15:00
# Now lets do some actual work. This starts R and loads the file myscript.R
R --no-save -q < myscript.R
Now, to submit your R job, you would type
qsub submit-R.qsub
Java
We support 4 versions of the Java VM on Beocat. IcedTea 7 and 8 (based on OpenJDK), Oracle JDK 1.7 (Java 7), and Oracle JDK 1.8 (Java 8).
We allow each user to select his or her Java version individually. If you do not select one, we default to IcedTea 8. This was changed from Oracle JDK 1.7 on May 29, 2015 due to a EOL notice from Oracle.
Selecting your Java version
First, lets list the available versions. This can be done with the command eselect java-vm list
% eselect java-vm list Available Java Virtual Machines: [1] icedtea-bin-7 [2] icedtea-bin-8 system-vm [3] oracle-jdk-bin-1.7 [4] oracle-jdk-bin-1.8
If you'll note, icedtea-bin-8 (marked "system-vm") is the default for all users. If you have a custom version set, it will be marked with "user-vm". Now if you wanted to use icedtea-7, you could run the following:
eselect java-vm set user 1
Now, we see the difference when running the above command
% eselect java-vm list Available Java Virtual Machines: [1] icedtea-bin-7 user-vm [2] icedtea-bin-8 system-vm [3] oracle-jdk-bin-1.7 [4] oracle-jdk-bin-1.8
To verify you are seeing the correct java, you can run java -version
% java -version java version "1.7.0_121" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 2.6.8) (Gentoo icedtea-7.2.6.8) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.121-b00, mixed mode)
Python
We have several versions of Python available:
- CPython 2.7
- CPython 3.4
- PyPy 5.4.1 (Python 2.7.10)
- PyPy3 5.5.0-alpha0 (Python 3.3.5)
For the uninitiated PyPy provides just-in-time compilation for python code. While it doesn't support all modules, code which does run under PyPy can see a significant performance increase.
If you just need python and its default modules, you can use python2 python3 or pypy as you would any other application.
If, however, you need modules that we do not have installed, you should use virtualenvwrapper to setup a virtual python environment in your home directory. This will let you install python modules as you please.
Setting up your virtual environment
- Change your shell to bash
- Make sure ~/.bash_profile exists
if [ ! -f ~/.bash_profile ]; then cp /etc/skel/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile; fi
- Add a line like
source /usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
to your .bashrc.
echo "source /usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
- CRITICAL: Logout, and then log back in
- Show your existing environments
workon
- Create a virtual environment. Here I will create a default virtual environment called 'test', a python2 virtual environment called 'testp2', a python3 virtual environment called 'testp3', and a pypy environment called testpypy. Note that
mkvirtualenv --help
has many more useful options.
mkvirtualenv -p $(which python2) testp2
mkvirtualenv -p $(which python3) testp3
mkvirtualenv -p $(which pypy) testpypy
- Lets look at our virtual environments
%workon testp2 testp3 testpypy
- Activate one of these
%workon testp2
- You can now install the python modules you want. This can be done using pip.
pip install numpy biopython
Using your virtual environment within a job
Here is a simple job script using the virtual environment testp2
#!/bin/bash
source /usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
workon testp2
~/path/to/your/python/script.py
A note on mpi4py
If you are wanting to use mpi with your python script and are using a virtual environment, you will need to send the correct environment variables to all of the mpi processes to make the virtual environment work.
#!/bin/bash
# sample mpi4py submit script
source /usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
workon testp2
# figure out the location of the python interpreter in the virtual environment
PYTHON_BINARY=$(which python)
# mpirun the python interpreter within the virtual environment
# if you don't use the interpreter within the virtual environment, i.e. just using 'python'
# the system python interpreter (without access to your other modules) will be used.
mpirun ${PYTHON_BINARY} ~/path/to/your/mpi-enabled/python/script.py
A note on scipy
SciPy requires numpy, unfortunately it doesn't properly define a dependency on numpy, so you just have to install it first.
source /usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
workon testp2
pip install numpy
# now scipy needs lapack and it doesn't detect the system one. lets fix it
export LAPACK=/usr/lib/libreflapack.so
export BLAS=/usr/lib/libopenblas_openmp.so
pip install scipy
Perl
The system-wide version of perl is tracking the stable releases of perl. Unfortunately there are some features that we do not include in the system distribution of perl, namely threads.
Submitting a job with Perl
Much like R (above), you cannot simply 'qsub myProgram.pl', but you must create a submit script which will call perl. Here is an example:
#!/bin/bash
#$ -l mem=1G
# Now we tell qsub how long we expect our work to take: 15 minutes (H:MM:SS)
#$ -l h_rt=0:15:00
# Now lets do some actual work.
perl /path/to/myProgram.pl
Getting Perl with threads
- Setup perlbrew
- Change your shell to bash
- Install perlbrew
curl -L http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash
- Make sure that ~/.bash_profile exists
if [ ! -f ~/.bash_profile ]; then cp /etc/skel/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile; fi
- Add
source ~/perl5/perlbrew/etc/bashrc
to ~/.bash_profile
- Add
echo "source ~/perl5/perlbrew/etc/bashrc" >> ~/.bash_profile
- Then source your bash profile
source ~/.bash_profile
- Now, install perl with threads within perlbrew
- Find the current Perl version.
% perl -version This is perl 5, version 16, subversion 3 (v5.16.3) built for x86_64-linux (with 22 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail) (...several more lines deleted)
- In this case the version is 5.16.3, so we run
perlbrew install -f -n -D usethreads perl-5.16.3
- To temporarily use the new version of perl in the current shell, we now run
perlbrew use perl-5.16.3
- To switch versions of perl for every new login or job, run
perlbrew switch perl-5.16.3
- You can reverse this switch with
perlbrew switch-off
Installing my own software
Installing and maintaining software for the many different users of Beocat would be very difficult, if not impossible. For this reason, we don't generally install user-run software on our cluster. Instead, we ask that you install it into your home directories.
In many cases, the software vendor or support site will incorrectly assume that you are installing the software system-wide or that you need 'sudo' access.
As a quick example of installing software in your home directory, we have a sample video on our Training Videos page. If you're still having problems or questions, please contact support as mentioned on our Main Page.