Table of Contents

tl;dr #

Put the following in your .bashrc

function use_build {
    # other ALCF machines
    if hostname -f  | grep polaris &>/dev/null; then
       echo "loading polaris spack"
       module swap PrgEnv-nvhpc PrgEnv-gnu
       module load cudatoolkit-standalone
       source ${HOME}/git/spack-theta/share/spack/setup-env.sh
       export CRAYPE_LINK_TYPE=dynamic
       export clustername=polaris
     fi
    export SPACK_USER_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/.spack/$clustername"
    export SPACK_USER_CACHE_PATH="$SPACK_USER_CONFIG_PATH"
}

Then run

mkdir -p ~/git
git clone https://github.com/spack/spack git/spack-polaris
git clone https://github.com/robertu94/spack_packages git/robertu94_packages
git clone https://github.com/mochi-hpc/mochi-spack-packages git/mochi-spack-packages
source ~/.bashrc
use_build
spack compiler find

# for extra packages like libpressio and thallium
spack repo add ~/git/robertu94_packages
spack repo add ~/git/mochi-spack-packages

First create packages.yaml at ~/.spack/polaris/packages.yaml with:

packages:
  all:
    providers:
        mpi: [cray-mpich]
  cuda:
    externals:
      - spec: cuda@12.0.0
        modules: [cudatoolkit-standalone/12.0.0]
      - spec: cuda@11.8.0
        modules: [cudatoolkit-standalone/11.8.0]
      - spec: cuda@11.7.1
        modules: [cudatoolkit-standalone/11.7.1]
      - spec: cuda@11.6.2
        modules: ['cudatoolkit-standalone/11.6.2']
      - spec: cuda@11.4.4
        modules: [cudatoolkit-standalone/11.4.4]
      - spec: cuda@11.2.2
        modules: [cudatoolkit-standalone/11.2.2]
    buildable: False
  libfabric:
    externals:
      - spec: libfabric@1.11.0
        modules: ['libfabric/1.11.0.4.125']
    buildable: False
  cray-mpich:
    externals:
      - spec: cray-mpich@8.1.16+wrappers
        modules: ['cray-mpich/8.1.16']
    buildable: False
  openssl:
    externals:
    - spec: openssl@1.1.1d
      prefix: /usr
    buildable: False

After that create compilers.yaml at ~/.spack/polaris/cray/compilers.yaml with:

compilers:                                                                                                                                
- compiler:                                                                                                                               
    spec: gcc@12.3.0                                                                                                                      
    paths:                                                                                                                                
      cc: /usr/bin/gcc-12                                                                                                                 
      cxx: /usr/bin/g++-12                                                                                                                
      f77: /usr/bin/gfortran-12                                                                                                           
      fc: /usr/bin/gfortran-12                                                                                                            
    flags: {}                                                                                                                             
    operating_system: sles15                                                                                                              
    target: x86_64                                                                                                                        
    modules: ['libfabric/1.15.2.0', 'cray-mpich/8.1.28']                                                                                  
    environment: {}                                                                                                                       
    extra_rpaths: []

And now spack should work. On your next login, just call use_build to reload spack.

For the longer version see the guide on [configuring spack]({% link _guides/spack.markdown %})

What makes this machine special? #

We use openssl and mpi from the system to avoid configuring them
We load a new compiler and programming environment because the default is older.
Spack shares a home filesystem with other machines like cooley these machines are completely different hardware wise and use different module systems. The load function loads a copy of spack specifically for Cooley and uses a separate spark instance for other machines. We use spack’s SPACK_USER_CONFIG_PATH variable to keep these cleanly separate.
Polaris is a cray machine, so needs some cray special sauce like the PrgEnv-gnu to behave more sanely. However, unlike theta it uses CRAYPE_LINK_TYPE=dynamic as the default behavior so we don’t need to set it here.
As of writing, Polaris uses slingshot 10 and will be updated to Slingshot 11 in Fall 2022 While this should not change the configuration used here, it may change the connection strings for certain applications using mochi/margo based services from using from verbs;ofi_rxm to cxi

Changelog #

2022-08-29 created this document