Managing software on ARC

Overview

In addition to basic software distributed with most Linux systems, additional application packages and libraries have been installed for use on ARC under /global/software. Also see the module avail command below for a list of some of the installed software packages. Write to support@hpc.ucalgary.ca if you need additional software installed.

Environment modules

To facilitate the use of some of the software on the ARC cluster one can load a corresponding environmental module file, which may add an installation directory to the PATH variable used to locate the executable files, or help the software find libraries upon which it depends. An overview of modules on WestGrid is largely applicable to ARC.

To list the software for which an environment module file has been created, use the command:

$ module avail

Then, to set up your environment to use a particular package, use the module load command. For example, to load a module for Python use:

$ module load python/anaconda-3.6-5.1.0

If you need to undo the changes made by loading the module, you can use the module unload command:

$ module unload python/anaconda-3.6-5.1.0

To see currently loaded modules, type:

$ module list

Unlike some clusters, there are no modules loaded by default. So, for example, to use Intel compilers, or to use Open MPI parallel programming, you must load an appropriate module.