We are happy to announce that, after a long pilot phase, we are granting all users full access to use Apptainer containers on the cluster. Containers are virtual environments that allow running an identical software configuration across several systems, e.g., two different HPC systems, and simplify the setup of software that only runs well on other Linux distributions. Apptainer also supports the conversion of Docker images and can thus run a vast variety of existing images with little to no extra effort.
Previously, we only allowed curated container images as part of our software stack and individual images on a per-case basis. Starting today, users can build and run their own container images anywhere on the cluster.
If you are interested in using Apptainer, please take a look at our documentation[1] and read the „Best Practices“ section to get started and avoid common problems. As part of our efforts to support containerized workloads in HPC, we will also grow our collection of container images in the module system and provide a set of Claix-specific base images for various scenarios that can be used as a foundation for your own container images.
[1] https://help.itc.rwth-aachen.de/service/rhr4fjjutttf/article/e6f146d0d9c04d35aeb98da8d261e38b/
