Singularity

Singularity is a software that enables execution of containers as a job on a cluster.

Running a Container

TODO

Adding Packages to a Docker Image

• Build a "Sandbox" of the dockerhub image -- we'll use the docker centos:7.6.1810 image as an example:

singularity build --sandbox /tmp/centos/ docker://centos:7.6.1810

• Modify the image -- add the emacs editor into the image:
  • Note the "-f" which means to use fakeroot which gives root privilege inside the conainer (so you can use yum install)

singularity run -f -w /tmp/centos/ yum -y install emacs

• Package up the sandbox into a singularity 1 file image:

singularity build -f centoswithemacs.simg /tmp/centos/

• Now you can use the container image in a job (replacing <your computation> with the program inside the container that you want to run):

singularity run centoswithemacs.simg <your computation>