1CHARLIECLOUD(7)                  Charliecloud                  CHARLIECLOUD(7)
2
3
4

NAME

6       charliecloud  -  Lightweight user-defined software stacks for high-per‐
7       formance computing
8

WHAT IS CHARLIECLOUD?

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
14       • software dependencies that are numerous,  complex,  unusual,  differ‐
15         ently  configured,  or  simply  newer/older than what the center pro‐
16         vides;
17
18       • build-time requirements unavailable within the center, such as  rela‐
19         tively unfettered internet access;
20
21       • validated  software stacks and configuration to meet the standards of
22         a particular field of inquiry;
23
24       • portability of environments between resources, including workstations
25         and other test and development system not managed by the center;
26
27       • consistent  environments, even archivally so, that can be easily, re‐
28         liabily, and verifiably reproduced in the future; and/or
29
30       • usability and comprehensibility.
31

HOW DOES IT WORK?

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
39       Container images can be built using Docker or anything  else  that  can
40       generate a standard Linux filesystem tree.
41

HOW DO I LEARN MORE?

43       • Documentation: https://hpc.github.io/charliecloud
44
45       • GitHub repository: https://github.com/hpc/charliecloud
46
47       • Low-traffic        mailing        list       for       announcements:
48         https://groups.io/g/charliecloud
49
50       • 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
55       • A   more   technical  resource  is  our  Supercomputing  2017  paper:
56         https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3126925
57

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

59       Contributors:
60
61       • Rusty Davis <rustyd@lanl.gov>
62
63       • Hunter Easterday <heasterday@lanl.gov>
64
65       • Oliver Freyermuth <o.freyermuth@googlemail.com>
66
67       • Shane Goff <rgoff@lanl.gov>
68
69       • Michael Jennings <mej@lanl.gov>
70
71       • Christoph Junghans <junghans@lanl.gov>
72
73       • Dave Love <dave.love@manchester.ac.uk>
74
75       • Jordan Ogas <jogas@lanl.gov>
76
77       • Kevin Pelzel <kpelzel@lanl.gov>
78
79       • Megan Phinney <mphinney@lanl.gov>
80
81       • Reid Priedhorsky <reidpr@lanl.gov>, co-founder and project lead
82
83       • Tim Randles <trandles@lanl.gov>, co-founder
84
85       • Matthew Vernon <mv3@sanger.ac.uk>
86
87       • Peter Wienemann <wienemann@physik.uni-bonn.de>
88
89       • Lowell Wofford <lowell@lanl.gov>
90

HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

92       Use our GitHub page: https://hpc.github.io/charliecloud
93
94       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
99       We     also     have     a     mailing    list    for    announcements:
100       https://groups.io/g/charliecloud
101
102       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
106       We are friendly and welcoming of diversity on all dimensions.
107

HOW DO I CITE CHARLIECLOUD?

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
116       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
122       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
127       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
132       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
138       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
142       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
146   Reporting bugs
147       If  Charliecloud  was  obtained  from your Linux distribution, use your
148       distribution’s bug reporting procedures.
149
150       Otherwise, report bugs to: https://github.com/hpc/charliecloud/issues
151

SEE ALSO

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
158       Full documentation at: https://hpc.github.io/charliecloud
159

NOTE

161       These man pages are for Charliecloud version 0.26 (Git commit 0.26).
162
164       2014–2021, Triad National Security, LLC
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1690.26                         2023-01-18 00:00 UTC              CHARLIECLOUD(7)
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