1CHARLIECLOUD(7) Charliecloud CHARLIECLOUD(7)
2
6 charliecloud - Lightweight user-defined software stacks for high-per‐
7 formance computing
8
10 Charliecloud provides user-defined software stacks (UDSS) for high-per‐
11 formance computing (HPC) centers. This “bring your own software stack”
12 functionality addresses needs such as:
13 • software dependencies that are numerous, complex, unusual, differ‐
15 ently configured, or simply newer/older than what the center pro‐
16 vides;
17 • build-time requirements unavailable within the center, such as rela‐
19 tively unfettered internet access;
20 • validated software stacks and configuration to meet the standards of
22 a particular field of inquiry;
23 • portability of environments between resources, including workstations
25 and other test and development system not managed by the center;
26 • consistent environments, even archivally so, that can be easily, re‐
28 liabily, and verifiably reproduced in the future; and/or
29 • usability and comprehensibility.
31
33 Charliecloud uses Linux user namespaces to run containers with no priv‐
34 ileged operations or daemons and minimal configuration changes on cen‐
35 ter resources. This simple approach avoids most security risks while
36 maintaining access to the performance and functionality already on of‐
37 fer.
38 Container images can be built using Docker or anything else that can
40 generate a standard Linux filesystem tree.
41
43 • Documentation: https://hpc.github.io/charliecloud
44 • GitHub repository: https://github.com/hpc/charliecloud
46 • Low-traffic mailing list for announcements:
48 https://groups.io/g/charliecloud
49 • We wrote an article for USENIX’s magazine ;login: that explains in
51 more detail the motivation for Charliecloud and the technology upon
52 which it is based:
53 https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/fall2017/priedhorsky
54 • A more technical resource is our Supercomputing 2017 paper:
56 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3126925
57
59 Contributors:
60 • Rusty Davis <rustyd@lanl.gov>
62 • Hunter Easterday <heasterday@lanl.gov>
64 • Oliver Freyermuth <o.freyermuth@googlemail.com>
66 • Shane Goff <rgoff@lanl.gov>
68 • Michael Jennings <mej@lanl.gov>
70 • Christoph Junghans <junghans@lanl.gov>
72 • Dave Love <dave.love@manchester.ac.uk>
74 • Jordan Ogas <jogas@lanl.gov>
76 • Kevin Pelzel <kpelzel@lanl.gov>
78 • Megan Phinney <mphinney@lanl.gov>
80 • Reid Priedhorsky <reidpr@lanl.gov>, co-founder and project lead
82 • Tim Randles <trandles@lanl.gov>, co-founder
84 • Matthew Vernon <mv3@sanger.ac.uk>
86 • Peter Wienemann <wienemann@physik.uni-bonn.de>
88 • Lowell Wofford <lowell@lanl.gov>
90
92 Use our GitHub page: https://hpc.github.io/charliecloud
93 Bug reports and feature requests should be filed as “Issues”. Ques‐
95 tions, comments, support requests, and everything else should use our
96 “Discussions”. Don’t worry if you put something in the wrong place;
97 we’ll be more than happy to help regardless.
98 We also have a mailing list for announcements:
100 https://groups.io/g/charliecloud
101 Patches are much appreciated on the software itself as well as documen‐
103 tation. Optionally, please include in your first patch a credit for
104 yourself in the list above.
105 We are friendly and welcoming of diversity on all dimensions.
107
109 If Charliecloud helped your research, or it was useful to you in any
110 other context where bibliographic citations are appropriate, please
111 cite the following open-access paper:
112 Reid Priedhorsky and Tim Randles. “Charliecloud: Unprivileged con‐
113 tainers for user-defined software stacks in HPC”, 2017. In Proc. Su‐
114 percomputing. DOI: 10.1145/3126908.3126925.
115 Note: This paper contains out-of-date number for the size of Char‐
117 liecloud’s code. Please instead use the current number in the FAQ.
118
120 Charliecloud is copyright © 2014–2021 Triad National Security, LLC.
121 This software was produced under U.S. Government contract
123 89233218CNA000001 for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which is
124 operated by Triad National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of En‐
125 ergy/National Nuclear Security Administration.
126 This is open source software (LA-CC 14-096); you can redistribute it
128 and/or modify it under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0. A
129 copy is included in file LICENSE. You may not use this software except
130 in compliance with the license.
131 The Government is granted for itself and others acting on its behalf a
133 nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable worldwide license in this material
134 to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the pub‐
135 lic, perform publicly and display publicly, and to permit others to do
136 so.
137 Neither the government nor Triad National Security, LLC makes any war‐
139 ranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability for use of this
140 software.
141 If software is modified to produce derivative works, such derivative
143 works should be clearly marked, so as not to confuse it with the ver‐
144 sion available from LANL.
145 Reporting bugs
147 If Charliecloud was obtained from your Linux distribution, use your
148 distribution’s bug reporting procedures.
149 Otherwise, report bugs to: https://github.com/hpc/charliecloud/issues
151
153 ch-build(1), ch-build2dir(1), ch-builder2squash(1), ch-builder2tar(1),
154 ch-checkns(1), ch-convert(1), ch-dir2squash(1), ch-fromhost(1), ch-im‐
155 age(1), ch-pull2dir(1), ch-pull2tar(1), ch-run(1), ch-run-oci(1),
156 ch-ssh(1), ch-tar2dir(1), ch-test(1),
157 Full documentation at: https://hpc.github.io/charliecloud
159
161 These man pages are for Charliecloud version 0.26 (Git commit 0.26).
162
164 2014–2021, Triad National Security, LLC
1650.26 2022-01-24 00:00 UTC CHARLIECLOUD(7)