Environment Modules on the Eagle System

The module command accepts parameters that enable users to inquire about and change the module environment. Most of the basic functionality can be accessed through the following commands.

The modulefiles that we provide are only a starting point. For maximum control, users should copy these files from the locations in /nopt to their own locations for which they have write access.

• Module files for baseline applications, libraries, frameworks, and toolchains are located in the /nopt/nrel/apps/modules/default/modulefiles directory.
• Users may and should freely copy these example modulefiles to preferred locations and customize them for their own use cases. This can be particularly desirable to preserve a critical workflow as the software environment changes on Eagle, or to change the behavior, e.g., turn off automatic loading of prerequisites. In order to add a location to be searched regularly for available modules, the module use command may be added to a login script (e.g., .bash_profile) or issued in an interactive shell or job script:

module use -a /projects/{allocation}/modules/default/modulefiles
module use -a /home/{username}/modules/default/modulefiles

The -a flag appends the path that follows to environment variable MODULEPATH; leaving it out will prepend the path. The first module found in searching $MODULEPATH is used, so the search order is important.

Since new versions of software are periodically added to the system, check current availability with the module spider command. If a module is needed often, the module load <module_name> command can be put in .bash_profile or other shell startup files.

To load a module:

$ module load <module_name>/<version>

Here <module_name> is to be replaced by the name of the module to load. It is advised to ALWAYS include the full versioning in your load statements, and not rely on explicit or implicit default behaviors.

To get a list of available modules, type:

$ module avail

It's a good idea to look at two other commands to see what a module does, and what software dependencies there are, as illustrated below:

[user@el4 04:05:26 ~]$ module show comp-intel/2018.0.3
...

[user@el4 04:05:37 ~]$ module help comp-intel/2018.0.3

...

The environment variables set by the module can then be used in build scripts. It is not necessary to load a module in order to use the module display command, this may be done at any time to see what a module does.

Module files for different versions can easily be swapped:

[user@el4 04:05:42 ~]$ module load openmpi/3.1.3/gcc-7.3.0
[user@el4 04:06:52 ~]$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
  1) openmpi/3.1.3/gcc-7.3.0
[user@el4 04:06:54 ~]$ module swap openmpi/3.1.3/gcc-7.3.0 openmpi/2.1.5/gcc-7.3.0
[user@el4 04:07:09 ~]$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
 1) openmpi/2.1.5/gcc-7.3.0

mkdir -p $HOME/modules/default/modulefiles
cd $HOME/modules/default/modulefiles
mkdir comp-intel intel-mpi
export TMP_PREFIX=/nopt/nrel/apps/modules/default/modulefiles
cp $TMP_PREFIX/comp-intel/2018.0.3 comp-intel/.
cp $TMP_PREFIX/intel-mpi/2018.0.3.lua intel-mpi/.
cp $HOME/.bash_profile $HOME/.bash_profile.bak
echo >> $HOME/.bash_profile
echo "module use $HOME/modules/default/modulefiles" >> $HOME/.bash_profile
						

Assuming you're using the bash shell, once you logout and log back in, you should see your new modules via module avail. At that point, you are free to rename, edit, and configure as you see fit. For example, Intel compilers rely on a background GCC compiler in the environment. By default, the system version (4.8.5) is used, but you could add the gcc/7.3.0 module to your collection, and create a comp-intel dependency on it so your build environment automatically uses the more modern GCC version.

Of course, by changing $HOME in the instructions above to a project location (e.g., /projects/<your project name>), you can create module collections that all users on a project can see and use.

Finally, the modules/default/modulefiles pattern is only convention—you can use any path that fits your needs.