[Users] installation of ET on a cluster

[IOSIF PANAGIOTIS]

Dear ET users,

This is (yet another) message requesting help to setup Einstein Toolkit on an HPC cluster.
Probably this type of messages is a bit recurring in this mailing list, but here goes... 🙂

I have installed Einstein Toolkit on my laptop and run a low-resolution simulation of a TOV star.
Everything worked fine, no problems encountered.

However, as probably most users interested in using ET, I would like to install it on a cluster to study something more computationally demanding.

The CactusTutorial jupyter notebook for new users does not tackle this scenario in detail.
Understandably, it would be unrealistic to provide generic instructions that cover all cluster configurations.
How about guidelines that cover some common scenarios though? (e.g. a cluster that organizes libraries and packages as modules and also uses the Spack manager)

Is there some documentation that gives basic guidelines as to how setup ET on a cluster aimed at a user profile that has (obviously) no previous experience with ET, simfactory etc and (quite possibly) also limited experience on how HPC clusters are setup, how packages are installed etc?

This request stems from the fact that I have been discovering little-by-little and through trial-and-error that e.g. running `./simfactory/bin/sim setup-silent` as outlined in the CactusTutorial,  makes no sense for the case of a cluster.
In my opinion, and if I may offer a suggestion, it would be a good idea to underline this distinction in a future revision of the tutorial.

Furthermore, another crucial step to setup ET on a cluster seems to be that the user must create "manually" their respective "<my_cluster>.cfg" and "<my_cluster>.ini" files and possibly the corresponding run and submit scripts.
Could you confirm that this is indeed the case?
What is the recommended course of action to do this?
Maybe one should start by copying a sample ".cfg" file and amend it with information found from their cluster's technical documentation?

I can follow up with more specific questions about problems I encountered during my so far unsuccessful attempts to install ET on a cluster, but to avoid people having to repeat explanations already given in the past, I would like first to make sure that I am not missing some source of information/documentation already available.

Also, in the long shot that someone has already installed ET on one of the CINECA clusters in Italy (I am trying to install ET on the Leonardo cluster), I would be grateful if you could share your insights!

Best regards,
Panagiotis


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Panagiotis Iosif
postdoctoral researcher
Department of Physics, University of Trieste
Via Alfonso Valerio 2, Trieste 34127
Italy
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