Attention

The ShARC HPC cluster was decommissioned on the 30th of November 2023 at 17:00. It is no longer possible for users to access that cluster.

Software install guidelines

General

All software will be installed using the environment modules system unless there is a good reason to do otherwise.
Every install must be documented. Minimum documentation consists of:
- An install script e.g. /sharc/software/install_scripts/apps/java/jdk1.8.0_102/binary/install.sh.
- An Environment Module file (if appropriate) e.g. /sharc/software/modulefiles/apps/java/jdk1.8.0_102/binary
- User documentation e.g. Java.

Community-installed software

Policy and guidelines are to be confirmed.

Centrally-installed software

Process

All updates to the documentation should be made via GitHub Pull Requests and Reviews to allow installs to be audited by other application administrators.

Categories and installation locations

Installs will be split into five types
1. apps: applications
2. libs: libraries
3. dev: compilers and development tools
4. mpi: MPI implementations
5. apptainer: Apptainer/Singularity container images (plus unpacked NVIDIA drivers for CUDA work)
Install locations will follow this schema:
```
/usr/local/packages/TYPE/NAME/VERSION/COMPILER-COMPILER_VERSION-OPTIONAL_DETAILS
```
Examples:
- R version 3.3.0 compiled with gcc 4.8.2
```
/usr/local/packages/apps/R/3.3.0/gcc-4.8.2/
```
- R version 3.3.0 compiled with Intel 15.0
```
/usr/local/packages/apps/R/3.3.0/intel-15.0/
```
- Intel Compiler version 15.1
```
/usr/local/packages/dev/intel-15.1
```
If an application or library, is a binary install, their path will end with binary rather than a compiler name e.g.
- Mathematica version 10.0.0
```
/usr/local/packages/apps/mathematica/10.0.0/binary
```
If more modules are required, such as OpenMPI version, they will be added to the end of the path. This gives the user an idea of the full environment they are going to be loading. For example:
- Version 4.4.3 of NetCDF library compiled with gcc 4.8.2 using OpenMPI 1.10.1 and HDF5 1.8.16
```
/usr/local/packages/lib/netcdf/4.4.3/gcc-4.8.2+openmpi-1.10.1+hdf5-1.8.16
```
The paths for compilers will obviously be much simpler:
```
/usr/local/packages/type/name/version
/usr/local/packages/dev/gcc/6.2
```
All install scripts should be committed to this documentation’s version control repository.

Module files

These should have almost-identical names to the corresponding installation directories but with packages replaced with modulesfiles e.g.

/usr/local/modulefiles/apps/R/3.3.0/gcc-4.8.2
/usr/local/modulefiles/apps/R/3.3.0/intel-15.0
/usr/local/modulefiles/dev/intel/15.1

Module files should be created for each patch release (if applicable) but if patch releases are installed then there should always be a symlink making it possible to activate the most recent available patch release for a given point release e.g. If apps/java/1.8u71 and apps/java/1.8u82 are both module files in /usr/local/modulefiles/ then there should be a symlink from /usr/local/modulefiles/apps/java/1.8u71 pointing at /usr/local/modulefiles/apps/java/1.8.
All module files should be committed to this documentation’s version control repository.

Permissions

All people able to install software are in the app-admins Linux group. /usr/local/packages along with per-application-category subdirectories are writable by the members of app-admins. Install scripts can therefore be run by app-admins members without the need for privilege escalation and these scripts will be unable to do damage to other parts of the system such as /usr/local. Another benefit of not using sudo/su for installing applications is that there is a record of who last modified each file. Specific requirements:
- Ensure that all files created by install scripts belong to the app-admins group unless there is a good reason for doing so (such as restricting access to license files to a certain group of users).
- Ensure that all files and directories created by install scripts are group-writable unless there is a good reason for doing so (such as restricting access to license files to a certain group of users).
/usr/local/modulefiles along with per-application-category subdirectories are writable by the members of app-admins.
To make sure that other admins can modify the files that you create you need to either:
- at the start of the install process set your umask to add group-write permissions to all new files:
  umask 0002
- or after the install recursively chmod the directory that you’ve just added to include group write e.g.
  chmod -R g+w /path/to/installed/application
Note that if you change your umask setting it will add group write permissions to all new files that you create during your session (which you may not want).
Also, some installers may fiddle with file permissions as part of the installation process.
Some application installers (especially Ansys and some Python packages) create world-writable files, which is a serious security risk.
To search an installed application for world-writable files:
```
find /path/to/installed/application -perm -o+w -! -type l
```

Sheffield-specific modifications/additions

Any Sheffield-specific modifications/additions (e.g. the runabaqus etc) will have full source code included in the documentation.

Standard methods of submission (i.e. ones that would likely work on other sites) will also be documented.

Installation media

Application media used for an install (tar files, sources, binary installers) should be stored in /usr/local/media/NAME/VERSION. This aids automated scripted installs and reproducibility.

/usr/local/media/protected is only accessible by users in the app-admins group for storing sensitive install media (e.g. to stop licensed install media from being copied).

Universally-useful scripts

Scripts can be stored in /usr/local/scripts. This is available across all nodes, including the login nodes. This should only be used for scripts which would be needed by all users (such as quota, or resetenv). This should not be used for binaries, or for applications.

Apptainer/Singularity images

Apptainer/Singularity images are a little different: images are to be installed under /usr/local/packages/singularity/images (naming hierarchy TBC). Unpacked NVIDIA drivers (for CUDA work) are to be installed under /usr/local/packages/singularity/nvidia-driver.